Sorting & Grading Coffee Beans


When the coffee has been dried, it is sent through a variety of machines which determine its grade and quality. Defect and foreign objects (stones, sticks, string, etc...) are removed during this time as well.


Coffee is dried in a thick outer shell called "parchment". Before the coffee is graded, this parchment must be removed using a large milling machine. In the picture, you can see the parchment flakes mixed in with the green coffee post-milling.

Grading and Sorting :

The coffee then heads to a machine that removes the defects from the mix. A variety of foreign objects can be seen in the picture below. Very powerful motors run the various machines in the process.

Densimetric Sorting:

This machine uses air and vibration to separate heavier and larger beans from the lighter coffee. As the beans are agitated, the heavier beans fall to the bottom of the tray and the lighter beans are forced upward. They empty into different sacks.

High tech sorting :

In smaller beneficios, coffee seeds pass down a large conveyer belt where a number of women pick out defective and off color beans. At this more modern beneficio, however, a large machine is used to do the work much more efficiently and quickly. Several hundred beans at a time are loaded into a chamber and a series of sensors analyze the color of each bean - rejecting those that are off and dumping them into a separate pile. Each and every bean is analyzed in this way to ensure that only the best of the best leaves the ports.


Bagging of the final product :

The coffee is then bagged and stored. A small and random sampling, called a "muestra" will be extracted and sent to the catador to determine quality.

