Nothing defines a Champaign-Urbana autumn like a trip to Curtis Orchard & Pumpkin Patch. The orchard offers fall-themed activities for all ages, from apple and pumpkin picking to wagon rides.
Since its founding as a farm by Paul and Joyce Curtis, the business remains family-owned and operated. However, it wasn’t until 1977, when they planted the first apple tree, that Curtis Orchard came to life.
Co-owner and President Randy Graham has been making apple cider since the business opened to the public in 1980. For the last 45 years, he has woken up Tuesday morning, gone to work and begun the week’s cider-making process.
“My father-in-law established this orchard in the late 1970s, and the first year we opened, they had a hailstorm,” Graham said. “So he went out and bought a little tiny cider press to start our cider operation, and we really reintroduced cider to Champaign-Urbana that year.”
What started as a makeshift solution to unsellable apples quickly became the product C-U knows Curtis Orchard for today.
Get The Daily Illini in your inbox!
“Now, in the old days, parts of the equipment were wooden,” Graham said. “So when you got to stainless steel, it extended the shelf life a great deal. We’ve learned a lot about quality control.”
Rachel Coventry was raised at the orchard with the rest of her family, and she went from hoeing pumpkin patches in her teenage years to working as the office secretary at the store.
“I grew up here, and I love it,” Coventry said. “I didn’t always work in the orchard. I’ve had outside jobs to kind of feel what it was like, but I (realized I) would like to raise my family the way I was raised and get them involved and still be a vital part of the community.”
Since the orchard’s first small press in 1980, they have refined the intricate cider-making process. Now, a whole section of the store is dedicated solely to grading, pressing and tasting apples.
“We have the good, bad and ugly (apples),” Coventry said. “The good go to the main store. The ugly can be pressed into cider, where they get put down in the bin. The bin dumps them, and then they go up a conveyor belt where they get chopped up.”
The rest of the process is relatively straightforward, with rollers then applying 2,000 pounds of pressure to squeeze all the juice out of the apples. The remaining part of the apple, called pomace, serves as compost in the orchard.
The juice is then filtered and flash-pasteurized, leading to the final tasting and bottling part of the routine.
“I think tasting is the key,” Graham said. “Over time, you kind of learn what apples will flavor the batch in which way. What we’re looking for is not a precise flavor but more like what we call a strike zone. So not too sweet, not too tart, not too thick, not too thin.”
With every batch being unique from its predecessor, Graham also explained that earlier seasons tend to produce a tarter cider, while “October cider” is the sweetest it gets.
Processing Manager Nancy Woltman has worked at Curtis Orchard for 30 years. She’s known Coventry since she was eight, returning yearly for another apple-filled season.
“I think it’s the people that are so important and so special,” Woltman said. “I wouldn’t have been here 30 years if I didn’t think there was something special about them. They are a wonderful family to grow with. You don’t just work for them; you work with them.”
Woltman said her favorite part of the job is all the people-watching she gets to partake in. She often spends time by the back door grading Honeycrisp apples and taking the environment in.
“You sit, and you look out the back doors, and you see all those people and all the families and all the kids,” Woltman said. “They’re screaming, and they’re yelling, and they’re having fun. There’s pumpkins and apples all over the place. It’s just a really nice business.”
Outside activities at the orchard last through the end of October, and Curtis Orchard transitions to business in the colder months. They welcome the holiday season by harvesting corn and bringing out homemade pies.
“What I like to say is we have something for everyone,” Coventry said. “Even on the craziest, most crowded days, you’ll still feel like it’s peaceful out here because it’s quiet, right? You can just experience the country and the fresh air.”
