delta76
Yeah, I understand your points. To be honest, I don’t have much experience in this side of the business yet—I’m mainly just a farmer.
About the grading, here it’s a bit different. Usually quality follows the price. Since the price has been low, people don’t really focus on grading. Also the older farmers here mostly do things the traditional way like how they used to—they’ve been doing it like this for years. For them, as long as the cherry has developed beans inside, it’s considered ready to pick.
Also, most of them only knows one way to sell their beans, which is to local collectors or “towkay” (middlemen). So they just follow the system that already exists, which is more about quantity than quality. too scary for them to just even try something new.
The cherries you see in the photo that are being dried in the sun—those are also going into that same system. They’ll be sold to the collectors as usual. It’s not really handled with quality in mind yet, at least not before I get involved.
For me, as part of the younger generation, I’m starting to see things differently. I get more exposure to information and the global market through my phone, so I’m trying to learn and understand better practices.
I also understand your point about roasted beans being more risky. From what I’m learning now, roasted coffee has a much shorter shelf life, while green (dry) beans can last much longer if stored properly.
So right now I’m still figuring things out—whether it makes more sense for me to focus on improving green beans first before thinking about roasting or export.
I appreciate your input—it really helps me see things more clearly.
@delta76
