A Postcard A day - Tuesday 26 March 2019 - T for olive pips and lots of coffee

Hello lovely ladies, How are you all?
I thought these birthday cards were just perfect for T-Day. Yes, it was my birthday on Saturday and one of the things I like about birthdays is opening my cards over breakfast.

With all those birthday cards I'm not showing you postcards today.
I also received a few hand-made cards:

 This first one is from my hubby. Where did you get that? I asked, as it is difficult to find birthday cards here in in-land Spain. He had spotted a box of cards at the vets and had gone back later to get me a card.

This one is from a friend in the UK. Her name is Claire and she sends me a card every year.

I will post some birthday photos on Friday.

Last week hubby hooked up the trailer and we drove to Olibaza, an olive processing plant, to buy olive pips. They are a product of the process of making olive oil. We buy them now for next year as they have to dry out over the summer.

Here is an article from their magazine translated by Google. The pips or stones are translated as 'bones' but I'm sure you get the gist.

The olive bone as fuel for the oil mill and the home

Written by Olibaza Category: News

If you are interested in the world of olive oil , you will know that one of the most important residues generated in its production is olive stone. But perhaps you do not know that that bone can become a magnificent clean fuel .

A normal olive olive campaign can leave in Spain up to 450,000 tons of bones that, traditionally, were taken to landfills. But nowadays it is very common for this waste to be recycled and used as an energy source .

If you have ever seen an oil mill, you will have seen the piles of bone and pulp that remain after pressing the olives. Well, that organic matter, once dry, is considered a first level biomass. Biofuel  producers crush the bones and use them to feed biomass boilers . They can be used directly ground or pressed in the form of pellets , small tablets of compressed bone sawdust.

The good thing is that you can use this biomass for the stove or the boiler of your home . And also the own oil mills use it to feed their boilers and generate the heat that some processes of their work require.

Olive bone that produces clean gas

As you know, biomass is very low pollutant and, thanks to it, it avoids burning more harmful fuels for the environment. But, in addition, there are processes to make it even more efficient and clean . For example, if the bones and pulp are subjected to a gasification process, a gas can be extracted from that biomass, which, once burned in the boilers, is more efficient in generating energy and even cleaner than direct burning. of the bone. 

Thanks to these systems, the olive bone provides a clean fuel and contributes to the olive oil industry being more sustainable and helps to protect the environment.

We use the pips mixed with almond shells as fuel for our stoves. The almond shells are relatively large and mixing them with the pips makes them 'flow' better through the hopper.

First stop: the weigh bridge

Then we drove round the corner to a mountain of ground stones/pips.

The chap came with the digger and filled our little trailer.

I walked around to see a bit of the installation. They have a special department for organic products (which they call 'linea ecologico'):

Before paying (10 cents a kilo), we had to weigh again on the weighbridge and the difference is what you pay for. This trailer full cost us 36 Euros.

On a different day, we also had business in town (Baza), and we had coffee at the bus station that we happened to pass. They always do a good cup of coffee:

Here they don't do lattes, cappuccinos and mochas etc. It's café, or café cortado (small glass that I am drinking, espresso with a dash of milk) or café con leche (hubby's drink). You can have black coffee with more water in a larger glass, and that is café americano. I sometimes have carajillo (black coffee with a dash of liquor in it. I like anis liquor). And for people that like sweet things: café bonbon. It is very popular here.

The bottom layer is condensed milk, but it is very sweet, so I don't usually drink it.

As if I didn't already have enough beverage references for T-Day! If you want to join the T-Party, make sure you have a beverage in your blog post and rush over to Elisabeth and Bluebeard who are hosts for this party.

Did I show you my haul of coffee? I have a Senseo coffee machine that works with pads. The make is Dutch and in Holland I can buy all sorts of fancy flavours. But here in rural Spain I can only get normal coffee. Well I happen to like a mocha, which is coffee with a bit of chocolate in it. Senseo's version is called Cappuccino Choco. 

I went online and I could only buy ten at a time. So I got ten!

That's it from me today.
Happy T-Day,
Lisca