REPROCESSING

The profession of the coffee pickers was closely linked to the commercial classification of coffee. As the amount of defective beans and impurities could reduce the value of coffee, in some cases it was useful to make a selection of these grains to improve their quality, and therefore its classification, this task was included in the reprocess. It is with this objective that were formed the warehouses of coffee picking- whether independent institutions or belonging to some exporter - in the early twentieth century.

The task was performed predominantly by women, who picked it manually, picking defects one by one and separating them from the rest of the coffee - which gave them the nickname "pianists". Generally they were temporary workers, having no connection with the warehouses and they earned per each sack picked, which was common due to fluctuations in productivity.

Manual picking began to fade in the 70s, when electronic pickers with superior productivity to manual labor, and lower cost, start appearing on the market, separating impurities through ventilation sieve, and then photosensitive machines that distinguished green beans and other defective grains considered defects.

Coffee picking was... the bags reached with good or bad coffee and the women were on long wooden tables with partition, there were the benches and the table had little nails that were used to nail the bags and two women lifted that 60kg-bag and put it on a stool and then the bag standing on it, they put up a stick to lift it up and drain, we had the apron and we picked the coffee manually, hand to hand as if we were picking beans today. When the coffee that was above ended, the one below was full, right, and then we took off and replace it with another. When the coffee was good, it was fast, right, this bag of coffee was quickly. And sometimes when the coffee was it was from Mogiana, so sometimes in 15 or 20 minutes, we picked up the bag of coffee, put it back and picked up another, because women earned per bag, so the more coffee bags they picked more they earned. So there was I on the side of my mother - my mother wanted to pick a lot of coffee - and I had to help, and when it was bad, very often, was very bad, very bad, very full of dirt, rotten coffee, twigs, stones, and we often sifted to remove excess of coffee for later pick. Those were slow, those coffees took a long time, up to 1 day or more than 1 day to pick a coffee bag, because it had to stay clean after this there was no point in picking everything and put behind like this, because after this the examiner would come, I don’t remember the name that was given to him, but he pierced the bags a caught a bit and there he examined it, and if he found one little dirt, he’d put it up again, that coffee was disapproved. That was disapproved and would go picking process again. So the woman could not try to cheat, pick all and put everything in the bag from beneath, because if the examiner found something dirt it was time and money lost. (sic)
Maria Carvalho Dias worked with her mother in a picking warehouse in Valongo in Santos in the 60’s. Testimony given to the Museu do Café in 2012.