COUNTRY OF ORIGINNatural dehydration of lemons
”The Dehydration Process” in practice
The process is very simple but it requires constant control and supervision.
DRIED LEMONS FOR EXPORT
•Ripe fruit is picked
• Product purchased from members and non members
• Product transported to store areas by the producers themselves
• Delivery, inspection and weighing in drying fields
• Product spread uniformly on raised earth beds (1.5 metres wide) covered with black plastic held in place by stones or other heavy objects at the sides
• Lemons are sun dried on the black plastic for 3-4 months until 80-90% water is lost
• Lemons are constantly turned and moved around to ensure homogenous drying; everyday, in the late evening, they are covered with the black plastic and, in the mornings, they are uncovered to expose them to direct sunlight
• Constant inspection to verify the degree of dehydration; products with defects or in a bad state are rejected
• Optimal conditions are reached when the lemons turn brown or black and have a slightly burnt look, when they are removed form the fields.
• The product is placed in polypropylene sacks and taken to store rooms. Dehydration ratio is 10 to 1
• Product is classified according to size and appearance. The lemons pass through a grid with set hole sizes
• Once classified, product is weighed and placed in sacks for export.
• Sacks are loaded into containers and taken to port for shipping.
LEMON ICE TEA
•Lemons that do not meet requirements in size and shape are used to obtain juice for iced tea.
• They are ground until grains are less than a millimetre in diameter
• The grains are packed into transparent plastic bags weighing approximately 25 pounds for storage
• The product is then submitted to a process which extracts and pasteurises the lemon essence
• The essence is mixed with pure water and sugar to obtain lemon ice tea
• It is then vacuum packed in labelled plastic bottles (250 millilitres, 500 millilitres, litre, _ gallon, and one gallon sizes)
• Product is distributed to supermarkets through the services of a transport company
LEMON TEA
•Lemon tea is made from ground lemon
• COELMON has established a strategic alliance with a specialised company for the production and commercialisation of the tea
• Product is processed and placed into two-gram tea bags which are packed into boxes of 25; the company is also responsible for distribution
• The product is sold under the registered COELMON trademark, owned by the cooperative.
