Have just picked several buckets of coffee berries off one of our thriving trees (they are ready to be picked when they are red).
I covered them in water and left them to ferment a few days (a ghastly mouldy scum grew on the surface of the water but washed easily down the sink when I was ready to process them).
Then a good rough mash with a potato masher (something heavier would have been better).
Then I put a strainer in the sink plug hole and tipped the whole lot into the sink. Then started a patient job of separating all the coffee beans from the fermented pulp. Quite pleasant really looking out the laundry window – I spotted a king parrot in the pigeon pea shrub.
The pulp went into the worm farm. From one bucket I got quite a pile of coffee beans. Spread them out to dry on an old flyscreen kept for drying things on.
The next step is to roast them. This is where it would be good to have people join in with advice!
At a multicultural fair last year there was an Ethiopian woman demonstrating their cultural practice of the women sitting round a tiny brazier with a small cast iron skillet baking coffee beans together. They then grind them and brew them and sip their coffee together. It takes a while but is a deep custom.
I have since found a small cast iron skillet at a garage sale so it remains to figure out the timing heat etc.
We also planted a tea bush which has now died but the coffee grows really well and some others have self-sprouted and are doing fine. They are a very attractive shrub and would do well as a privacy screen instead of mock orange.