Why Our Coffee Is So Smooth In The Cup
View our photo tour and you’ll discover how Pistol & BURNES coffee is grown and prepared for export. You’ll see why our specialty coffees and blends are unique.
The practices of growers and millers directly affect the coffee you pour and drink. And they affect the lives and land of the people who grow, pick, and mill coffee, and even those who live near coffee operations. We work only with farms and mills who use sustainable practices to produce superior coffee.
We’ll walk through the many steps of growing, harvesting, and milling coffee. We’ll start with Nurseries & Plantations. Next, we’ll explain how coffee is processed in Wet and Dry Mills, and finish with the drying process. When you’re finished the tour you’ll know more than most about the difference between an average and outstanding cup of coffee.
Nursery
Wet Mills
The most important part of purchasing green coffee is the wet mill. The milling process is not regulated or supervised. As you will see, the mill can have a critical impact on the environment and the quality of your coffee. The mill manger controls the flow of the cherries, so if we don’t have confidence in the integrity of the manager, we can’t be sure about the coffee we’re buying.
Water and Wet Mills
Wet mills use a great deal of water. Some mills are environmentally conscious. Others don’t care. The next few photos will show the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Two steps occur at a wet mill:
a) fermentation to separate the fruit from the bean – with the skin gone the mill removes the inner layers – the mucilage or fruit pulp, the pergamino or inner husk, and the silver skin next to the bean
b) cleaning the pergamino surrounding the green bean
Compare this Mill
These are photos of mills we do not work with, and why it important to trust your mill.
Conchitta’s Mill in Mexico
Now take a look at this wet mill in Mexico. One of the reasons we buy green coffee from Conchita is her compact and efficient wet mill. Our Mexican Aztec gold is dry processed by Conchita – this guarantees us quality and that our coffee isn’t mixed with other coffee at a commercial dry mill.
