Wednesday Walk - Walking the Beaver Creek Coffee Estate
I would never have guessed just how much work it takes to have that cup of coffee we take for granted each morning!
My day always starts with a strong cup of dark roast plunger coffee, and boy oh boy, if I cannot have it for whatever reason, it's like something is amiss for the rest of the day!
I suppose some would say that makes me a coffee addict, but it's a good habit as it's been proven that one or two cups of coffee has good health benefits, although I stick to max two cups because of reflux issues. Too much coffee is not good for one, so it's all about balance, as with most things in life.
Last week I took you all on a walk to a ship wreck at the gorgeous Glenmore Beach, but this week I will take you on a walk around a coffee farm in the same region - Beaver Creek Coffee Estate down on the South Coast of Kwazulu Natal.
The owner's son took us on a guided Crop to Cup walk around the farm; where three generations of this family have been toiling for three decades through the ups and downs of coffee producing.
Coffee was not as popular way back in the 80s, but this family persevered and are now growing, harvesting and roasting the finest coffee. They pick and harvest by varietal and that personal touch is what makes their coffee so distinctive.
As I said earlier, I really was amazed at the lengthy process involved in getting to that cup of coffee!
Of course it all starts with a seed, yep, that's what a coffee bean actually is; and here they've placed them on hessian to germinate.
Tiny little coffee plants are placed in tiny cylinder shaped containers till they're stronger and moved to bigger pots to be nurtured untill they're big enough to be planted out in the fields.
Healthy fully grown coffee trees with coffee cherries ready for harvesting - those little seeds can take around seven years to get to this stage.
The harvested cherries are placed in this contraption which removes the outer skin.
They use two methods to process the beans - a dry method where they're spread out and left to dry in the sun, or the wet method where they are placed in water to ferment for about 12 to 48 hours, dependent on the weather.
Thereafter they're rinsed and kept on large trays to dry out before packing into bags ready for roasting.
We went through to the roastery and saw some really ancient coffee roasters which are still operable.
Coffee roasting is a fine art; from light to medium to full to a dark roast.
We ended our walk with a full-bodied cappuccino with a dense foam made by the Barista, absolutely the best I've had for a long time!
I've only touched on the very basics of Coffee producing, but hope you enjoyed reading about this and that you will appreciate your next cup of coffee and remember all the work that goes into it!
Should you ever be in this part of the world, do stop over; they have a lovely Coffee Shop and they serve delicious light meals. They also sell the most interesting coffee related produce and other homemade and craft goodies as well!
This has been my contribution to @tattoodjay's #wednesdaywalk, hope to see a little about your part of the world as well!
Thank you for stopping by
Comments, upvotes & resteems all much appreciated :)
Copyright @lizelle - All Rights Reserved
!steemitworldmap -31.044156 lat 30.182222 long Beaver Creek Coffee Estate, Kwazulu Natal d3scr
Dont block me for saying this but i am one of those weird people who never had hot drinks and never been into coffee, allt he rest of my family were tea and coffee drinkers but not me, I didn't know how much went into preparing and growing coffee beans thanks for the informative post and for joining Wednesday Walk :)
LOL I won't block you but you're missing out big time @tattoodjay ;) Thanks for this tag!
I bet that place smelled wonderful @lizelle :) I wish I could drink coffee but I can't, I love the smell though! What a fun visit, it's always great to see how our "food" is produced, gives great credit to the hard working farmers! Beautiful pictures, I'm sure a wonderful day!
Oh it's such a lovely place to visit, they serve delicious light meals and have a lovely little shop with all kinds of delicious produce to take home, too bad you can't drink coffee my friend!
Thank you for stopping by, it's always so nice seeing you:)
I never learned to like coffee, even though my kids are coffee connoisseurs! They are always making fancy cups of coffee for me to try and I simply do not like it! Really great pictures and a very interesting post though.
It's funny but when I was a kid I did not like coffee at all, wouldn't touch it but just LOVE it now! Thanks for still commenting even though you're not a coffee lover ;)
PS Your kids know what's good for them ;)
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Gosh, thank you so very much, really appreciate your wonderful support!
Any time we receive an article like that we can't help it but have to press that upvote button!
I'm not a coffee guy, actually sour drinks are not in my wish list... But the process needed to make a cup of coffee is really amazing😊
I prefer hot chocolate in the morning, sadly I live in a city and most of the time I just see the final product, but if I ever manage to sneak some time out of my schedule I will visit a chocolate production facility (hand made is better than industrialized ☺️) and capture the beauty of that process as well.
I really liked the handy map I got to see at the bottom of your post while browsing on travefeed.io, but I dunno how to add one on my posts. Is it something related with steemworldmap tag? Or you have to add something to the post yourself?
Thank you so much for your valued input, I do love hot chocolate on a cold night but have been making it with Cacao powder lately, it's healthier and does not affect my reflux issues ;)
To get any travel related post onto Steemitworld Map, you need to put the following in your post, obviously with the correct lat long of your location, I do mine at the end of my post:
!steemitworldmap -31.044156 lat 30.182222 long Beaver Creek Coffee Estate, Kwazulu Natal d3scr
To get the lat long, go to Google Maps and find your location, right click on it and click 'Whats here'
I use the tags steemitworldmap and travelfeed, but to be featured by them, one's post needs to be at least 350 words, I think, check on travelfeed for that. It's great being able to see all one's travel posts there.
Hope to see yours there some time ;)
Thank you for your valuable reply, I'm going to China on August 12th, I think I will be there until August 23th and want I want to post each detail of the trip😊
Wow, enjoy your trip!
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Amazing farm with lovely history on how they started so small and grew into what it is today, patience, persistence paved they way to successfully farming coffee beans, proudly South African.
The tour was nicely documented Lizelle, their coffee and treats on sale, well let's say I did not leave empty handed. Another coffee addict of two in the morning then water for the rest of the day, have to kick start the day with a cuppa!
It is a lovely place indeed! We also took all sorts of goodies home, still drinking their coffee! Mac Bananas is another great place to stop over, so much temptation there as well!
Thank you so much for stopping by here ;)
This is my neck of the woods lizelle.
We regularly hike through the estate from Clearwater at the top of the 'mountain'.
I've also enjoyed their coffee with a scrumptious piece of cake. Say hi to Michelle next time you're there.....she's worked there forever.
How lucky can you be, thank you for sharing that @justjoy!
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