A lot of the terrain (geography and flora) looks just like Hawai‘i, except that I can't see the ocean. But the mountains look so familiar!
Costa Rica is located at just about 10 degrees North latitude...although its seasons are Southern Hemisphere. (I need to find out why that is...) It is considered a tropical climate, just like Hawai‘i, so all the same plants that grow at home are here as well. We're currently in the rainy season, and sure enough, it rains every day at right around 1:00 pm. It's a heavy downpour, and it lasts until about 6:00 or so. Then, although it does not rain at night, there is always lightening.
I have not been able to see the night sky at all since I've been here because of the regular cloud cover, so I feel like I don't know where I am. I can't get oriented.
But all of that has nothing to do with coffee, so I digress. Coffee needs certain conditions to grow, which is why only certain locales can successfully grow exceptional coffee. Primarily, it needs the right climate. Like Hawai'i, Costa Rica has volcanic soil, and upland regions that are high enough to produce the most fertile region of volcanic soil. If I remember correctly, this is at about the 6,000 foot elevation zone. Volcanic soil alone can be very acidic, but at a certain height range, it gets affected by other things that provide it with nutrients that will balance out the acidity, and that's what makes it especially fertile.
I know I'm explaining this badly, but I hope it at least makes sense.
Once at Doka, we first had breakfast, where we were able to sample their three main types of coffee. First, was the dark roast, which is the Espresso Italian. The medium roast was their specialty, the Peaberry coffee, and the light roast was simply called House Blend. I think someone told me that the light roast actually has the most caffeine in it, because caffeine is burned out through the roasting process, and the light roast gets the least roasting. I don't know if that one is true or not...
As it turns out, roasting a coffee bean only takes 20 minutes, and if the leave it in longer, the beans will burn. For dark roast, they take the whole 20 minutes; medium roast only takes 17 minutes, and light roast is 15 minutes. It is such a small difference in time, but you can visually see the difference in the beans.
[will post photo here after I download them from my camera!]
They walked us through the whole process, which now had me wondering what's the difference between a seed and a bean. We always say "coffee bean," but it grows in what looks like a very small fruit...and fruits have seeds. It has an outer skin, and a very thin layer of the fruit-like flesh, then the bean (seed?) is in the center.
Anyway, there are usually two beans in the fruit, but sometimes there is only one, a "mutant" bean, that forgot that it was supposed to separate. Most coffee producers discard these, because they represent only about 5% of the crop. However, if you process them, they make a very fine coffee. This is what is called the Peaberry coffee. Only the really elite coffee producers grow them, mainly because most won't go through the expense of producing something that will end up being only 5% of the total. But, because only a few producers will roast Peaberry, it has become a gourmet coffee.
The harvest season is four months long, and the beans must be picked by hand because the fruit are ripe at different times. Their harvest season is from November through February, and they conduct only one harvest per month. The choicest beans, what becomes the premium coffees, are harvested in the first three months. These are the choicest because the pickers only take the absolutely ripe fruit. They're not allowed to pick fruit that aren't quite ripe yet. When processed (but before roasting) these beans look almost white. They are stored in large bags until they are sold; coffee dealers buy these unroasted beans. They can be stored for up to one year and still be good.
[will post photo here after I download them from my camera]
In February they do two harvests, one at the beginning of the month, and one at the end. During the first picking, they are allowed to pick fruits that aren't 100% completely ripe, but are mostly ripe. Once processed, these beans turn out yellow, and is considered medium grade coffee. Then, at the end of the month, they pick whatever fruit is left, regardless of whether or not it is ripe. After processing, these beans are dark yellow, even nearly black. This is considered the lowest grade of coffee.
Our tour guide took us through the entire process, but I won't go into that here. I will say, however, that he explained it all very well, with a lot of easy to understand detail, which was in itself impressive because English was not his first language.
The fruit have to be run through a machine to squeeze them so that the outer skin will break. Then they flow into bins with water so that it will soak for a while to get the skin and the inner "slime" off. Then, after a couple of days, the beans are run through a washer to get all the rest of the "slime." From there, the exposed beans are taken outside to dry, and must sit there for a couple of days. People have to physically turn the beans over every half hour, so it is a laborious process. Then, after those two days, the beans are put in a huge dryer to make sure that they are absolutely dry.
That's the whole process. Once they are dried, they can be stored, as mentioned before, for up to a year before being roasted.
The plantation sells the beans like that, and it is up to the purchaser (who is often some foreign distributor) to roast the beans themselves.
So, now you know everything that I know about coffee production. The tour ended, of course, at the gift shop where, like good cattle (oops! I mean tourists), we all bought gourmet coffee.
After this stop, we went to Poas Volcano. I'll write about that experience in a separate blog.
Aloha!
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