Garbanzo de Escacena PGI

Tasting notes

Creamy albumen with little graininess. Soft, fine skin that sticks to the seed. Very smooth on the palate with an always pleasant taste and free of strange flavors. The chickpea is soft, tender, full of flavor and gives great results when used for cooking.

Other notes

Physical and morphological characteristics:
- The color of the chickpea is a very pale yellowish-white.
- The shape of the seed is long and flattened on the sides, with surface irregularities such as deep.
Up to 2 % of chickpeas that do not correspond to the characteristics set out above may be accepted, provided that they do not compromise the general appearance.
- The minimum size is 8 mm, and no more than 4 % of chickpeas may have a smaller diameter.
- The weight of 1,000 chickpeas must be at least 490 g.

Production / Processing method

The chickpeas are grown in rotation, with irrigation permitted when necessary to ensure sprouting and when the Regulatory Board acknowledges a situation of water shortage. The soil is worked to keep it free of weeds, very flat and with an adequate structure to permit healthy germination, with direct sowing allowed.

Phosphorous and potassium–based basal fertilization is applied to the soil if the minimum content required is not attained. Organic fertilizers are applied at least one year before sowing.

Harvesting takes place when the plants reach physiological maturity and the moisture level in the grains is less than 3%. When the harvested chickpeas have an impurity content of over 6% or moisture content of more than 14%, a pre-cleaning process is carried out immediately after harvesting and before storage.

At this stage of the storage process, the chickpeas are given anti-weevil treatment during the 10 following harvesting, unless they are to be taken to a packaging plant during this period.

Warehouses must be clean, dry, in a good state of repair and properly ventilated. The chickpeas are guaranteed to be stored separately from other products in the warehouse, preventing chickpeas from different batches being mixed together and keeping them away from potentially contaminating materials.

At the registered packaging plants the following processes take place in the following order:
- The chickpeas are checked on entry to ensure each batch is of uniform quality. This consists of measuring size, percentage of impurities, firmness and smoothness.
- The chickpeas are cleaned and foreign material removed by a pre-cleaning machine with closed sieving and air flow.
- The chickpeas are treated against dried bean weevils in the first 30 days after the harvest if this has not been done in the warehouse.
- Sieving and sizing using round-holed sieves.
- Removal of defective seeds using a densimetric table.
- Packed in containers of up to 5 kg.
- Final quality control checks on packaging and product (size, impurities and split grains).
- Affixing labels issued by the Regulatory Board.

The dried chickpeas can be sold up to two and a half years after harvesting has been completed.

Geography / Relief and climate

Garbanzo de Escacena is only grown in areas with Vertisol Topoform soils known as tierras negras (black lands) or barros (mud ground) in Huelva and tierras de bujeo (muddy lands) in Seville. These are deep soils with a high clay content
(mainly montmorillonite) and which, due to the relatively flat terrain, have poor drainage, retain high levels of moisture and are very base rich.

The combination of clay soils with a high potassium content and the climate in the Guadalquivir river basin, tempered in spring and summer by afternoon and evening sea breezes, produces a high quality crop.

Regulatory Council

Consejo Regulador de la IGP Garbanzo de Escacena
Carretera de la Estación s/n
21870 Escacena del Campo (Huelva)
Andalucia
Tel: (+34) 959 423 211
info@igpgarbanzodeescacena.com
www.igpgarbanzodeescacena.com

Sources:
 
- Spanish Ministry of Agriculture

- Regulatory Council, Garbanzo de Escacena PGI