SOLAR ROASTED COFFEE – AN EXAMPLE OF ACADEMIC- COMMUNITY

COLLABORATION IN NICARAGUA

Susan Kinne
Adelina Sanchez Richard Komp
Programa de Fuentes Alternas de Energia Maine Solar Energy Association
Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria 17 Rockwell Rd SE
Managua, Nicaragua Jonesport ME 04649
Skinne1@juno.com sunwatt@juno.com

ABSTRACT process retains more flavor and keeps the beans from
getting bitter. The flavor is actually better than the first
The development of a method of using box type solar quality beans roasted in the conventional manner. The
cookers to roast coffee is an example of the university- coffee is stronger so you can use 1/3 less for the same
community cooperation now being developed by flavor. Growers in this area have been using direct solar
Grupo Fenix in Nicaragua. Part of Grupo Fenix is the bean drying methods for many years so the step to a
Programa Fuentes Alternas de Energia at the National solar roasting method was a natural progression.
Engineering University (UNI) in Managua. This group
has been working with Nicaraguan villagers to
scientifically develop a solar method of roasting coffee,
including the training of village women to measure the
times, temperatures and other parameters involved in
the process. The creation of a Center for Research,
Promotion and Production of Renewable Energy
(CIPPER, Centro de Investigación, Promoción, y
Producción con Energía Renovable) is a step in
formalizing and organizing this work.

1. INTRODUCTION

Grupo Fenix, a part of the Universidad Nacional de Ing

eniería (UNI) in Managua has been working with
village women in northern Nicaragua since 1999 to
develop efficient solar box cookers and encourage the
women to use these cookers every day. One of these
women, Christina Nolasco developed a method of
roasting coffee using her solar cooker about 4 years
ago, which has spread to a number of the women in
several villages. This is one of the coffee producing
parts of Nicaragua. Some of the villagers work with
the Fair Trade cooperatives to sell their coffee at a
higher price than to the regular commercial coffee
buyers. Buyers are interested in the best of the coffee
beans. The villagers roast (or “toast” as they call the
process) the lower grade ones for their own use.
Christina discovered that the slower solar roasting
Fig 1 Christina roasting coffee in her solar box cooker.
The original development of the solar box cookers was
an example of the informal exchange of information
between the UNI and local communities. UNI
professors and scientific experts from developed
countries gave workshops and seminars where the
physics of the solar cookers was examined and the
ideas developed were incorporated into the next
generation of the solar cookers. Non-academic
Nicaraguans contributed a great deal to this process,
suggesting practical solutions to the problems that they
discovered while using the cookers. The use of the
solar box cookers to roast coffee is an example of the
community members going beyond simple
improvements, to develop a new use for the solar
cookers. They also are using similar techniques to roast
maize (corn).
Grupo Fenix has decided that one of its major missions
is to formalize thisVillage/University “Knowledge
Cycle” process and develop a two way collaboration
with Nicaraguan villages. Grupo Fénix is working to
achieve this mission through the creation of a Center
for Research, Promotion and Production of Renewable
Energy (CIPPER, Centro de Investigación, Promoción,
y Producción con Energía Renovable) to facilitate the
“knowledge cycle” between universities and the rural
community1. Through a dynamic exchange of ideas,
knowledge is shared between the university and the
community, where the ideas are applied and tested
against the reality of daily life. The ideas and processes
of the university are perfected in the community by
“local scientists” in conjunction with outside
researchers, always guided by respect for the
environment and local culture.
Once the ideas and processes are improved, they return
from the community to the university where they
interact with other ideas to form new understandings.
These new understandings return to the community and
are tested, continuing the knowledge cycle. The role of
the CIPPER is to develop, through the knowledge
cycle, products and processes of renewable energy
applications to the stage at which they can be
reproduced by other institutions and organizations.
2. EXPERIMENTAL WORK
2.1 Creating Rural Scientists
Two of us, Susan Kinne and Richard Komp decided to
work with Adelina , since she was one of the village
women who had been working consistently with her
solar oven and had been investigating new variations of
the solar coffee roasting process, including the roasting
of other materials such cocoa beans, maize and millet. .
The first step was to have a set of informal classes
where we taught Adelina and her daughters the
elements of scientific research, good record keeping.
and quantitative measurement techniques. We
furnished Adelina with an inexpensive kitchen scale
capable of measuring up to 1 kilogram of material to an
accuracy of about 2 grams, and a digital multimeter
with a Type K thermocouple temperature probe
accurate to the nearest degree Celsius. We also
furnished her with a small bound notebook and
instructed her and her daughters how to use the
notebook for scientific note taking. They were taught
to use a new page each day data was gathered and that
no pages were ever to be removed. In addition to the
columns of times and temperatures, a column was
included for notes, such as the weight of the coffee put
into the solar oven and the weather, including the
passing of clouds.
Fig 2. Instructions in the use of the digital multimeter to
measure the temperature of the coffee in the solar oven.
2.2 The Solar Coffee Roasting Process
Coffee roasting is normally carried out in large heated
rotating cylinders and is a well developed, carefully
controlled process2. Generally the roasting process is
done in stages with the initial slow “drying” of the
coffee producing yellowish brown beans that smell like
toast. At this point the coffee beans undergo their first
exothermic “crack” at about 205o C, where they expand
in size and turn a light brown. Further heating to 220o
C produces the second exothermic crack where the
coffee beans lose more weight and turn a medium dark
brown. Unless a really dark roast is desired, the
roasting is stopped at this stage and about 15 to 18% of
the original weight has been lost.
The solar box cooker used in the coffee roasting
process is a design that was developed based on the
work of William Lankford and his PROCESO Centero
Girasoles near Granada in Nicaragua3. While the basic
design is the same as the PROCESO model, Grupo
Fenix has modified the design and construction
techniques to use more local material and reduce the
cost, while keeping the performance and utility at the
original high level. The box is 75 cm by 75 cm and 30
cm high with a reflector/cover to increase the solar
input when open and protect the oven while closed.
While some women spread the coffee out over the
bottom black tray in the oven, Adelina used smaller flat
aluminum trays to better handle and weigh the coffee.
 noon. All the experimental work was done at Adelina’s
home in Sabana Grande, in the community of
Totogalpa in Northern Nicaragua

The coffee typically loses between 12 and 18% of its

weight during the solar roasting process but losses as
large as 25% have been seen. We believe that these
larger losses are a result of using green coffee beans
that have not been properly dried. All the coffee used
was solar dried outdoors and most of the coffee roasted
in our experiments was freshly dried. Commercial
coffee roasters generally use beans that have been dried
weeks to months before and shipped long distances, so
the beans probably have less moisture at the start of
their roasting process.
Fig 3. Measuring the temperature of the roasting
coffee. This was in the morning of a cloudy day so the
temperature was not high enough to roast.

2.3 Experimental Results and Discussion

We discovered that it took at least two days to properly

roast the coffee. The women normally take the coffee
out of the solar cooker when the beans are light brown.
and still hot. Then they will roast the beans further on a
flat ceramic or steel plate over a fire until the women
decide the color of the beans is a deep enough shade of
brown.. This takes about 15 minutes.

Solar Coffee Roaster Tem perature

Fig 5. Drying coffee in the sun at a nearby Totogalpa
160 cooperative. The green coffee is spread out on black
140 polyethylene sheets in the direct sun and stirred several
times a day with wooden rakes. This is done during the
120
dry season, from January through March.
Degrees C

100

80
We ground and prepared both straight solar roasted
coffee and coffee that was toasted on the fire for 15
60
24-Feb
minutes after the solar roasting. People definitely
40 preferred the latter, but we discovered that one could
20 15-Mar mix the two types in equal parts to produce a strong but
mild blend of coffee that has become popular among
0
the Grupo Fenix staff. Since Nicaraguan village
women who have solar cookers still generally have a
Tim e fire going some part of the day to prepare tortillas, the
fire roasting uses a very small amount of extra
firewood. The higher temperatures during this step
probably produce the chemical changes identified with
Fig 4. Graph showing the results of two typical days of the higher molecular weight material responsible for a
operation of the solar coffee roaster in 2006. good part of coffee’s flavor4,5. These materials
include the complex compunds formed by the pyrolysis
On the 24th of February, there were clouds in the of polysaccharides. These compounds are most likely
morning and some haze all day, while on the 15th of produced by the cross linking of the polysaccharide
March there were some clouds both in the morning and molecules with the loss of water.
later in the afternoon with a brilliant sun right after
3. FUTURE PLANS
We have already finished the construction of a much
larger solar box cooker specifically designed to roast
coffee. It is 102 x 202 cm in size but much shallower,
25 cm tall at the high side of the sloping glass cover but
only 15 cm at the low side. This is just enough space to
get hands and a stirring stick into the roasting chamber
but as low as possible to keep convection currents to a
minimum to avoid heat loss. The new roaster is
completed, but hasn’t been used to roast enough coffee
to provide data for this paper.
Fig 6. The recently-completed new solar coffee roaster.
Future research plans include a more careful study of
the temperature changes that take place during the
roasting of the coffee, including the creation of an
instrumented coffee bean, with a Type K thermocouple
inserted into the center of the bean to measure any
exothermic reaction that may take place during the final
stages of the roasting.
4. CONCLUSIONS
We have shown that the feedback process is a
successful way to bring a quantitative scientific focus to
the new ideas and innovations developed by villagers in
remote parts of the world. The process goes beyond the
simple training of the villagers to take measurements;
we have shown that some of the villagers become
owners of the scientific processes and can use their
natural curiosity to produce verifiable and scientifically
valuable knowledge. We also have furthered the
development of the process of solar roasting coffee to
produce a product that is accepted as a very desirable
beverage.
The solar roasted coffee has become very popular and
the production of it has become a source of extra
income for the village women, with very little extra
work; since the solar cookers only need to be turned to
follow the sun about once every half hour and children
like to do this small chore, leaving the women with
some free time for other work. Some women actually
put food in the solar cookers surrounded by coffee
beans and cook their meals in this same efficient way.
Some women also use the solar cooker to toast
pinolillo, a traditional drink made from a mixture of
roasted maize, cocoa beans and cinnamon.
CREDITS All photos were taken by the authors.
5. REFERENCES
(1) Richard Komp, Susan Kinne, Cody Reed, Creating
a Solar Culture in Nicaragua via a University-
Community Knowledge Cycle, International
Conference on Renewable Energy for Developing
Countries, Washington DC, April 2006
(2) Davids, K. Home Coffee Roasting: Romance and
Revival. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1996
(3) William Lankford, Solar Box Journal ,#16 Solar
Box Cookers Northwest 1994
(4) F,M Nunes and M,A Coimbra, Chemical
characterization of the high-molecular-weight material
extracted with hot water from green and roasted robusta
coffees as affected by the degree of roast, J Agric Food
Chem, 50 (24): 7046-52, 2002
(5) Philippe Montavon, Anne-France Mauron, and
Elaine Duruz’ Changes in Green Coffee Protein
Profiles during Roasting, J. Agric. Food Chem., 51 (8),
2335 -2343, 2003