My shea is better than yours...

I could teach you, but you'll have to sit through our broken bambara presentation. I really enjoy working with shea and hanging out with the women who have been working with shea for years. So when I was asked to help three other PCVs with a shea presentation in a nearby village I was happy to jump on board. A lot of the women that attended the meeting had not received any prior training before on how to produce shea butter from a raw nut, all the practices they currently use have been passed down from generation to generation of Mali women. Producing shea butter is a very long process.
Women collect the shea and store them in pits or large piles in their concession. This is bad, because it can lead to rot (bad odor butter) and many of the seeds may germinate which leads to bitter butter.

pit to store nuts (bad)

De-pulp the fruit and wash it before boiling the nuts to prevent germination.

this part takes long and is gross, because it attracts so many flies

nuts boiling

lay them out to dry in the sun

This is the hard part, because of the humidity and high chance of rain it is very difficult to dry the nuts in the sun, which is the best practice. Unfortunately many women place the nuts over a fire to smoke them dry.

bad burned/smoked nuts

de-husking the nuts after they have been boiled and dried in the sun

Currently I am past the dehusking part and waiting for my nuts to dry completely. Then it is off to the grinding mill (or pounded with mortar and pestle) to pulverize the nut into a paste that is later beaten by hand with water to extract the butter. That is then washed five times, boiled and filtered into a container to cool. Then the butter is sold or used for household consumption (cooking, moisturizer, or soap making).

shea paste and nuts to be grinded

to be continued...