9 August 2011 - Kerribee Park Rodeo Grounds, Mareeba Queensland

Today will be marked down in Australian history; it is census day and we have desisted from camping on the road side so that we may be included in the official count. As an amateur genealogist, I applaud the census process, and will be interested to see what questions are asked of us; the forms have yet to be delivered to the park. With well over one hundred vans in here, even more than last night for probably the same reason as us, it will be quite a job for the census officer to distribute the forms in an efficient and timely manner. Oh well, not really our worry.

Again the weather today is just superb. The day broke clear and cool, about twelve degrees, after a cooler night than more recently experienced. Returning this afternoon after our day’s outing, I noted that the temperature in the bathroom was 28 degrees and changed accordingly out of my more modest shirt to something cooler and less appropriate for a woman of my age. I must remember to change again before our guests arrive.

To the east, toward the ranges we came over yesterday from Cairns, we noted a large pall of smoke heralding an out of control bush f ire. Now some hours later, one half of the sky is obscured by even more smoke. Perhaps we shall learn later what is really happening, however we are confident that we and the town of Mareeba are quite safe from the ravages of any fire.

We have had a perfect day, visiting the Coffee Works, one of the tourist attractions based on the local coffee industry. Rather than farm tours offered by others, Coffee Works is more a museum and taste experience, like a Disneyland for coffee. There is a huge collection of coffee paraphernalia: percolators, grinders, pots, cups, expresso makers and every other thing you could associate with the drink. I preferred the huge display of posters with stories and the history of the industry and beverage from it’s beginnings in Ethiopia, through Yemen, and then spreading through the world. Who would have thought that this apparently simple drink could have been the subject of religious, commercial, botanic and romantic intrigue. I was spell bound and wished that all the information could have been encapsulated in one book available in their marvelous gift shop.

In the factory part of the operation, we observed coffee beans being roasted, mixed and bagged and quizzed the roaster with a thousand questions which he tirelessly answered. We could only suggest elocution lessons for him to better the experience.

There is a wide range of coffees to try, along with many kinds of chocolate and coffee liqueurs. We tasted coffee after coffee and ate kilos of delicious chocolate created in their own chocolaterie, and sipped on one liqueur, but came away in the end too confused to select any one product, but with heads full of information and praise for this excellent experience. It was so good that we escaped for lunch in a nearby park, then returned to continue our exploration.

There was no much fascinating information and I have written below all those pieces I can remember, for my own reference if no one else:

·         The ripe coffee cherries are harvested here in Australia between June and August.

·         From every mature tree you can expect to get 1 2 kilo of roasted coffee.                   

·         On average, a hectare will produce 1.2 tonnes of coffee.                                            

·         Of the coffee grown in Australia, this area produces 90%.                                                 

·         There are 12 farms here in Tropical North Queensland.                                                         

·         Coffee is also grown in northern New South Wales, where there are approximately 70 farms all much smaller holding s than those here.                                                            

·      200 tonnes of coffee is currently produced in Australia.

·         Commenting on the milk added to coffee, the English writer, Smollet, wrote in 1771, “But the milk itself should not pass unanalysed, the produce of faded cabbage leaves and sour draff, lowered with  hot water, frothed with bruised snails; carried through the streets in open pails, exposed to foul risings discharged from doors and windows, spittle, snot and tobacco liquids, from foot passengers; overflowings from mud and carts, splatterings from coach wheels, dirt and trash chucked into it by roguish boys for the joke’s sake, the spewings of infants, who have slabbered in the tin-measure, which is thrown back in that condition among the milk, for the benefit of the next customer; and finally, the vermin that drops from the rags of the nasty drab that vends this precious mixture, under the respectable denomination of milkmaid.”Anyone for milk?

·         Coffee moved from Turkey and Arabia to Europe in the 1600s, passing from one group of people of Mediterranean and Near Eastern origin, who were unable to digest milk, to Europeans, who could. Approximately 70% of the world’s population suffer from lactose (milk sugar) deficiency, in particular Mediterranean peoples, Arabs, Greek Cypriots and Southern Italians.

·         From the two ends of Europe, two totally different ways to brew coffee developed; filtered in Northern Europe and expresso style in Southern Europe. The intolerance to milk may have even been the reason why cappuccinos in Italy are smaller.

·         In the beginning of the 1800s, the Dutch were harvesting coffee in the east Indies, the West Indies and Ceylon. The Brazilians were sending coffee to the New World (the United States) and Europe. The Spanish were taking it from neighbouring South and Central American countries.

·         The British were happy to simply drink it in their wonderful coffee houses, direct from their estate in India and Ceylon, because in the mid-1800s, the British East India Company is more concerned with opium than with coffee. But when the coffee blight wiped out the British Indian and Ceylonese coffee plantations in 1869, drastic steps were taken. The British began to plant coffee in their East African colonies of Kenya and Uganda. With these new plantings, the circumnavigation of coffee cultivation came full circle, back to within a few hundred miles from where the first Arabica coffee came from.

At last when we tore ourselves away, we went to the Coles supermarket, stripped the shelves of non-perishable food stuffs (18 cans of baked beans, 15 cans of fruit, 8 cans of prepared casseroles, 2 cans of bully beef, 2 cans of frankfurters, 8 packets of cabin biscuit style crackers to be substituted for bread if unavailable, 2 packets of couscous, 6 packets of powdered potato, and so on), filling the trolley to overflowing, then topping it with cardboard cartons for packing. It was reminiscent of the shops I did when we were at Koramba on the cotton farm, but different in that we will not have refrigeration.

We are now home, sitting quietly waiting for our acquaintances of yesterday to arrive for a drink, listening to the far away fire sirens.