ESG News

For this year’s first youth career exploration, the Novatek volunteers accompanied the students from the Tsu-Hsin Children’s Home on a coffee industry tour in Baguashan, Changhua. The students learned about the varieties of coffee beans, coffee bean harvesting and processing methods, coffee bean roasting, and coffee tasting so that they have a better understanding of coffee.

The period from October to November each year is the harvest season for coffee beans in Taiwan. During this period of time, the fruits of coffee plants become matured and turn red. At the beginning of the activity, the students played the role of coffee farmers to harvest coffee fruits. The coffee fruits were not ripened at the same time, showing red and green colors. They must be manually inspected one by one during harvesting and the number of harvests reached as many as five or six times. On that day, the number of coffee fruits that we harvested was not even enough for making 10 cups of coffee. It made us realize the hard work of coffee farmers. Coffee farm work includes coffee planting and field management, as well as the processing of coffee fruits after harvest (including peeling, shelling, silver coating removal, washing, sun drying, screening, and packaging). In the morning, the young farmer guided everyone to experience all the processes and shared related knowledge with the students, allowing them to learn a lot from the hands-on experience. Furthermore, the students were allowed to bring home the coffee seedlings that they planted as well as the coffee beans that they packaged.

In the afternoon, the volunteers accompanied the students to the coffee shop to continue learning about coffee brewing. The first thing a barista must do when getting green coffee beans is to pick the beans. Picking out the defective beans requires a lot of manpower. If the defective beans are not picked out, the coffee will easily deteriorate, affecting the color and aroma of the coffee or even the health of our body when we drink it. Drink it more likely. Damage to health. Since picking beans relies heavily on eyesight, the barista showed a self-developed AI (artificial intelligence) bean picking machine to the students, so that they can understand the possibility of integrating modern technology with agriculture. In order to separate defective beans, besides differentiating the beans from their appearance, the coffee taster also prepared a "coffee flavor wheel" that can distinguish defective beans based on their smell. The coffee tester also roasted a large bag of defective beans beforehand. When the bag was opened, everyone received a nasty and unpleasant smell and realized that defective beans can really make a huge impact on coffee.

The one-day exploration of the coffee industry, allowed the students to understand how the coffee industry combines a series of value-added processes to transform coffee fruits into a cup of coffee, and how a one-stop industrial chain from coffee planting to consumption is developed. Through the guidance of a barista, the students have been trained to find their favorite cup of coffee based on smell and taste.