THE SANTOS-DUMONT COFFEE PLANTATION IN BRAZIL]
The fallen coffee berries are now clean. They are still red, about the size and look of cherries. The red exterior is a hard pod or _polpa_. Inside of each pod are two beans, each of which is covered with a skin of its own. The water which has fallen with the berries carries them on to the machine called the _despolpador_, which breaks the outside pod and frees the beans. Long tubes, called "dryers," now receive the beans, still wet, and with their skins still on them. In these dryers the beans are continually agitated in hot air.
Coffee is very delicate. It must be handled delicately. Therefore the dried beans are lifted by the cups of an endless-chain elevator to a height, whence they slide down an inclined trough to another building because of the danger of fire. This is the coffee machine house.
The first machine is a ventilator, in which sieves, shaken back and forth, are so combined that only the coffee beans can pass through them. No coffee is lost in them and no dirt is kept by them, for one little stone or stick that may still have been carried with the beans would be enough to break the next machine.
Another endless-chain elevator carries the beans to a height, whence they fall through an inclined trough into this _descascador_ or "skinner." It is a highly delicate machine; if the spaces between are a trifle too big the coffee passes without being skinned, while if they are too small they break the beans.
Another elevator carries the skinned beans with their skins to another ventilator, in which the skins are blown away.
Still another elevator takes the now clean beans up and throws them into the "separator," a great copper tube two yards in diameter and about seven yards long, resting at a slight incline. Through the separator tube the coffee slides. As it is pierced at first with little holes the smaller beans fall through them. Farther along it is pierced with larger holes, and through these the medium-sized beans fall, and still farther along are still larger holes, for the large round beans called "Moka."
The machine is a separator because it separates the beans into their conventional grades by size. Each grade falls into its hopper, beneath which are stationed weighing scales and men with coffee sacks. As the sacks fill up to the required weight they are replaced by empty ones, and the tied and labelled sacks are shipped to Europe.