Our Tales From Tanzania: Coffee (Homebrew!)

We’ve lived here for almost 5 years AND we have coffee trees in our yard. They are beautiful and the flowers smell amazing, but we’ve never attempted to actually make coffee from them. One lazy Sunday Matt decided that was the day that we’d start.

Coffee Trees Blooming

Ripe Coffee Beans

Putting the worker bees to work

Matt getting started on separating the good beans and removing the pulp (red part)

That was before we figured out the ‘wet’ method of mashing them to remove the outer pulp

The beans then had to ferment in water for almost a day to remove the slimy part

Then we let the beans dry out in the sun for about a week

At this point the beans still had an outer husk (parchment layer) on them that needed to be removed (you can see it starting to peel off a couple in the picture above). Luckily Mama Jackie had the appropriate tools to help pull that off, so we didn’t have to manually do it. Or at least the process wasn’t as manual as it could have been. (After a bit of research I learned that some people just leave the parchment layer on and roast it all together)

Now we’re left with the green bean that’s ready for roasting.

Right now the house smells amazing!

Roasted (~30 min)

Ready to drink

Definitely not bad for a first try; we just might have to do this again. We ended up with just over a pound and a half of coffee. Nice!

In other news…..

We got a 9 year old last week. She’s pretty amazing. She had a birthday party…actually a few. It’s not every day you get to turn 9.

Also, last week I was swarmed by bees while out for a run. Luckily I am not allergic and was finally able to outrun them and get back home. It was very scary, and I counted 13 different bee stings leaving angry welts on my head, arms, and back that had me uncomfortable for a few days. Benadryl at bedtime did wonders. I’ll definitely never run without my phone again.

We are back into the busy school routine plus piano (Tierney), guitar (Ashlyn), soccer (Anderson), and, swimming (all). It’s been warming up, and we’ve been riding bikes to school – it’s a great way to start the morning.

This weekend will be one of those really hard to be abroad weekends. One of my beautiful Goddaughters/nieces, Queen Fiona, is turning 6. Now we miss lots of birthdays to be sure, but hers is the day before the Second Annual Mike Coyle Fun Run. It was such a great event and it kills me that I can’t be there again this year. So, if you are in the area, get your crazy hair on, and go out and support Mike’s precious Goyles.