Coffee beans growing in Costa Rica : See coffee plants growing, learn about picking, washing, drying and roasting coffee beans on a day tour to a coffee plantation. It's a great way to see how coffee is grown, as well as get into the countryside for a taste of Costa Rica daily life.
Costa Rica coffee plantations cover the hillsides north east of San Jose, less than an hour's drive from the city, so it's fairly easy to fit in a coffee tour even if your time is limited.
Coffee Beans growing on bush at plantation in Costa Rica
On a day trip from San Jose to La Paz and Poas, we stopped to tour a coffee plantation about an hour's drive from the city.
The coffee bushes are kept pruned so they don't grow too high, and the ripe coffee beans can be hand-picked without using a ladder.
The coffee beans turn red (picture) when they are ready to be picked. The red part is a shell of the actual coffee bean, which is white and moist.
Costa Ricans don't pick coffee, our guide explains. They prefer to bring in Nicaraguans to work on the plantations. Indeed, we could see dozens of Nicaraugan workers walking along the highway carrying woven baskets, headed for the day's work at the plantations.
The Nicaraguans -- entire families in some cases -- come here for 3 months at a time when the coffee beans are ready to be picked, staying in estate-provided housing on the plantations, and sending about 30 percent of their salaries back home.
Coffee Plants Grown from Cuttings, Costa Rica at a Plantation Near San Jose
A tour guide describes how coffee beans are grown from new coffee plants started as cuttings of mature coffee bushes.
Coffee plants are grown in neat rows along the steep hillsides, thriving in the cool humidity of the mountain country and the rich volcanic soil.
Inside a processing plant on the Doka Estate (picture here), a series of machines washed, hulled and sorted the ripe coffee beans.
The basic process is fairly simple, and you can get quite close to see how it all works.
Conveyor belts move the beans through the processing center, then the cleaned beans are dried, either by blowers in the building or outside on a slab on concrete in the sun.
Coffee Beans Drying in the Sun, Doka Estate, Costa Rica Plantation
Our guide led us outside the processing center, to where a 'hill o' beans' needed to be dried in the sun.
Sun-dried coffee beans are exported; machine-dried beans are for domestic use.
"So you ship us all these beans that have been dumped on an outside slab of concrete, mixed in with who knows what?" I asked.
"Yep!" he replied with a smile, as he invited everyone to come have a try at raking the beans, and spreading them out to dry.
Roasting the Coffee Beans at Doka Estate, Costa Rica
Inside another building, a propane fired roaster turned the beans from pale beige to a rich, deep brown.
Roasting coffee beans doesn't take very long, a matter of minutes, and one of the workers tested the doneness at short intervals.
Though the beans look innocuous enough, at this stage they are still very hot, and we were warned not to touch anything.
In Ethiopia, for the coffee ceremony, beans are roasted in a pot over a brazier.
if you are traveling in Costa Rica, and you've never seen coffee beans growing, or watched them being processed, do take a short tour.
Coffee beans are usually sold ground and bagged at the plantations, but you will find some whole beans and decafeinated coffee as well.
Costa Rican coffee makes a great gift to take home for your family and friends.
Coffee Beans Costa Rica Video
Here's a short video I made of the bean-washing equipment:
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- Great page on coffee!
Add A CommentTeena - http://www.a-night-in-paris.com/paris-coffee.html - March 21, 2010, 11:41 pm
Hi Karen,
It was so great to read all about your Cost Rica adventure and the coffee growing - and I love the photos!
Thanks for sharing your travels in such a great way.
Cheers
Teena
http://www.a-night-in-paris.com/paris-coffee.html
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