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 The Seeds
At the end of each season, the producer selects the seeds for the following year. They are taken from fruits with typical characteristics (size, shape, stalk) of the Gorria variety.
Growing
  Between
20 and 26° the chillis germinate in greenhouses in March.
Transplanted, watered, grown with the utmost care, requiring knowhow, patience, rigour and attention.
Plantation
To help the young plants to reach maturity, the producer needs to hand weed each plant. When the plants are about 30 cm high they are staked by hand.
Flowering starts in June until October.
Green in colour after fertilisation, the fruits become a bright red and achieve their full size of 7 to 14 cm in 3 weeks...
The time has come to harvest !
 Harvesting
Harvesting is done by hand from the beginning of August to 30 November, depending on the maturity of the fruits.
The red chillis are hand wiped, sorted then graded depending on their final use: fresh, string or powder.
Transformation
 The fresh string : 20 chillis of the same size, smooth and faultless are strung together with kitchen twine to form a string. The Espelette chilli strings can be easily identified by their AOC logo.
The powder : The chillis selected for powder are dried on racks for a period of 15 days. The stalks are removed one by one and are sorted before being oven dried. Before being ground they are sorted again to remove any dead parts. The grinding is chosen by the producer.
At this stage the product is edible. Meanwhile, commercialisation depends on a classification certificate given by INAO (Institut National des
Appellations d'Origine) if the product reaches the specification levels.
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