It's a Labor-Intensive Trip From the Slope to the Sip

Squeezed gently, a ripe red coffee cherry yields the beans inside. (By Jeff Harpell)

JAYUYA, Puerto Rico -- From 5 a.m. to noon in the harvest season that runs through February, coffee pickers walk backward down the steep slopes of the 320-acre Hacienda Ana plantation in the shadow of Cerro Punta, the commonwealth's highest peak, toting heavy buckets of fruit. After noon, it's too darn hot.

This day, a cooling morning rain and stiff breeze keep the air temperature at a comfortable, below-normal 80 degrees. Lush, green hills ribboned with red dirt trails rise to meet wisps of passing clouds. There's an awesome double rainbow off to the northeast, toward San Juan -- fine for a tourist.

But if your objective is to strip bushy, 10-foot Arabica coffee trees of as many ripe, red "cherries" as possible, there is not a lot of time to dwell on the beauty of a rainbow. Even though the pickers include inmates from a local prison, there are never enough workers to get the job done on schedule.

In Puerto Rico there are more desirable ways to make a living, such as working in one of the many pharmaceutical plants. That's why you don't hear a lot about single-origin, shade-grown Jayuya. About 21.5 million pounds of coffee beans were harvested in 2005-06, according to the island's Department of Agriculture, not enough to meet domestic demand. More than 8.5 million pounds had to be imported from the Dominican Republic.

There have been more robust times. In the 1800s, the industry flourished, with much of its export going to Europe. But then neglect, hurricanes, high production costs and U.S. interests in island sugar production, rather than coffee, took their toll.

Signs point to a small revival for the island's coffee industry. For example, Encantos, the coffee company that owns the Ana plantation, grossed $2.4 million last year, up from $10,000 in 2001 but still a drop in the cup for a global commodity that ranks second in trading after oil.

But Encantos founder Angel Santiago, 28, who borrowed a coffee roaster in exchange for a six-pack of Heineken seven years ago and packaged his first beans on his mother's living room floor, says "people are looking for new aromas and flavors. Importers want a library of coffees to balance a cup. And when it comes to aroma, our beans are ridiculous." With even better beans in mind, he's experimenting with harvesting at various times of day and at different air temperatures.

Coffee picking is physically challenging work that requires a good deal of stretching and stooping. These tropical evergreens with shiny, pointed leaves bear fruit in clusters, some ripe, some not. Using both hands, you grab a branch, center it over a five-gallon plastic bucket slung around your neck on a rope, and use your thumbs to release only the ripe fruit. All the while you try to avoid the nests teeming with tiny red biting ants that are hard to spot on the like-colored clay soil.

After a bumpy ride up the mountain in the back of a pickup, I grab a grape-size coffee cherry for the first time. The skin is smooth. With just a slight squeeze, out pop two glistening, pale green beans coated with a clear, sticky goo. I bite into a rubbery, raw bean and find none of the flavor components that make waking up in the morning easier.

Out of the sun, in a funky metal shed on the edge of the plantation, where chickens scramble under tractor wheels, the fruit is packed into burlap bags and weighed. The name of the picker is added to a tag. Workers receive better pay for ripe fruit, so they are careful not to harvest the green berries. They won't be paid for pounds of green leaves or the occasional rock.

In days to come, the fruit will be pulped, dried, milled to remove a parchment covering on the bean, and sorted by weight and size. Roasting will follow, another labor-intensive step on the road to a steaming cup of cafe con leche.