**A different kind of processing — what I actually drink from my own farm**
Hey everyone, wanted to share something a bit different this time. Not about prices or harvest numbers — this is about the cherries I choose to keep for myself to process and drink.
Most people pick coffee cherries off the branch. I pick mine off the ground.
When a cherry is truly ripe, it lets go on its own. It falls without being pulled. Sometimes I find them the same day. Sometimes they’ve been sitting there overnight, or even a few days — not because I left them, but because I hadn’t found them yet. The farm is big enough that some spots take longer to reach.
Some of the ones I never find in time start doing something else entirely. They stay on the ground long enough to become a new tree. That tells you something about how ripe they were — past the point most processors would even consider using, but that’s exactly what makes them interesting to me.
After collecting them I sort and wash. A lot gets removed in that step. What survives is what actually matters.
The cup I get from these is strong — not sharp, but deep. Heavy fruit, a bit wild, almost fermented. Not the kind of flavor that fits neatly on a tasting wheel. The sugars are fully concentrated by the time I pick them up. The skin has already started fermenting from outside, the seed from inside. Ambient yeasts from the soil are already in the process. No tank, no controlled environment — just the ground, the humidity, and time.
I know this is far from standard practice. But for my own cup, it’s exactly what I’m after.
