Beneficio de Cafe Pastores Mill | Photo Essay
Beneficio de Cafe Pastores Mill, Genuine Origin’s milling operation in Antigua, Guatemala, was not originally constructed to process coffee. In fact, it was built in the 1800’s as a flour mill. Pastores bought wheat, processed it and sold it as flour until about 1910, when it was converted to coffee receiving and processing.
Today, after more than 200 years of change and adaptation to change, Pastores is adding enhanced milling and drying functionality to its arsenal.
For years Pastores relied on traditional wet-milling equipment. It was efficient in many ways, but keeping the mill running was water and labor-intensive. Cherries were brought to our receiving station where they we sent to canals to separate floaters.
The new wet mill makes Pastores more efficient. Processing cherry requires 90% less water and milling capacity has increased without any impact on quality.
The slope and angle of the receiving station was modified to allow a better flow of cherries. The new Pinhalense depulper uses almost no water in its process. The cone size shape depulper has layers which remove the cherry skin according to the size as they go down the tube. The separators sort the cherries by density replacing the long canals that were previously used.
Patios were replaced with an enhanced brick that was specially designed to absorb humidity. Unlike regular concrete patios, the new brick does not damage the beans when the sun is too intense. Its humidity absorbing material keeps the brick relatively ‘’fresh” while the sun removes water from the surface area.
The new wet mill operation puts Pastores a cut above its competitors and is definitely an upgrade. But behind Pastores quality and innovation is an adherence to traditional hand-sorting. The mill boasts about 100 sorting desks. Each sorter is capable of producing roughly one 69 kg bag of exportable green coffee per day. The process is slow, but the highly detailed process ensures an extremely low defect rate — perfect for specialty coffee buyers. Finished bags are stored in the Pastores warehouse before being dispatched to their final destination.
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Check out Genuine Origin’s freshest coffees from Beneficio de Cafe Pastores Mill and other Guatemalan favorites at https://www.genuineorigin.com/guatemala
