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@ tumasphoto
2025-04-22 01:29:16"There are two pillars in Costa Rica, education and coffee." A tourist guide I met told me this, and during the trip I discovered the strong link between coffee and the locals.
In fact, coffee runs very deeply in the Ticos' culture. So deep that the summer vacations from school (November to January) coincide with the coffee collection season. Children had to help their parents with the coffee. Coffee was a family business.
Monteverde, in the region of Puentarenas, is one of those places where coffee ha always been a corner stone of the society. Here, My gf and I went to visit a coffee plantation and discovered how coffee is made.
Monteverde
Monteverde is a well-known turistic location in the central part of Costa Rica. Many people reach this beautiful place to visit the famous Cloud Rainforest, acres and acres of pristine forest, with many different kind of animals and plants living in it.
However, other than tourism is coffee that pushes the economy of this place. The hills around the town are covered with coffee plantations and there are tours than try to explain how coffee is made.
Coffee Tours
While we were in Monteverde, we joined one of these tours. We decided to give credit to a smaller plantation instead of the super turistic ones. A more rustic and family-owned business, El Pueblo Coffee Tour. We were not disappointed. We had the show all to ourselves, a super-prepared guide and all the time to make questions and enjoy with no rush.
The Plant of Coffee
Since Costa Rica is a quite small country, to compete on the market producers decided to bet on quality instead of quantity. That's why, the only type produced here is the Arabica.
Before the coffee bean, the plant produces a nice white flower, similar to the jasmine.
After a while, the coffee beans appear.
As soon as they turn red, they are ready to be collected.
Interesting fact: between the coffee plants many fruit trees like mangos or bananos can be found. In fact, those plants help keep the soil fertile and healthy, thus leading to a higher coffee quality!
Coffee Harvesting
Coffee is still harvested by hand. Beans do not get mature at the same time, so manual labor is needed. Laborer use a very simple tool to collect coffee, one which allow them to have both hands free.
Workers do not get paid by hours, but by the number of cajuelas that they can fill. A cajuela is a standard box, which contains around 13kg of beans. It's divided into quarters, so that the worker can get paid for the quarter, too.
Each cajuela is paid around 3.50$.
Coffee Drying
In the farm we visited, drying was perfomed naturally, through the heat of the sun. There are three ways in which the bean is left to dry: lavado, miel and naturàl.
- Lavado: The beans are peeled and washed to remove the jelly.
- Miel: The jelly on the beans is maintained to give it more sweet flavour.
- Naturàl: The bean is left to dry with its peel on, to give it a more fruity taste.
Back in the days, to peel the beans for the lavado and the miel variety, the pìlon was used. The bean is very hard, thus this tool does not damage it.
However, today the peeling procedure is done using a machine.
Coffee Roasting
The last step in the production of coffee is roasting. Coffee is put inside a sort of hoven, and is left there at high temperature according to the level of roasting that is needed. The more roasting, the less caffeine there is and the more bitter the coffee. Usually you have light, medium and dark roast.
Coffee Tasting
In the end, we also had a coffee tasting. We tried different roasting and different varieties.
Our guide explained us the best way to taste coffee and helped us defining the different flavours that we perceived. He also taught us the best way to prepare it: infusion time, water temperature, coffe makers and so on.
My favorite one was the dark one, while my gf enjoyed the light roast more. Of course, we bought some packs of these varieties!
Thanks for tuning in!
I hope you enjoyed this brief overview of the Costa Rican coffee.
Pura Vida
Tuma