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Writer's picturePatricia Hebenstreit

Day 13: Coffee Plantation and Going Away Dinner

On this day we started off at a coffee plantation, while some of our stops had been to coffee farms, this was the first time we had been to a plantation. The coffee plantation that we toured was 143 hectacres and was more than 100 years old. On this farm they grow the Arabiia coffee variation, which is native to Africa, but it is the best quality coffee. Coffee plants can live for more than 100 years however the older the coffee plant is the worse the quality and quantity becomes. So here on the farm they allow the coffee plant to grow for about 25 years, before they’ll cut it down and grow a new coffee plant with the seeds from the coffee and the years before. The seedling comes form the coffee berry that forms on the coffee plant. Each berry consists of two beans within it, and when a new coffee plant and needs approximately three yearsto grow before the first production of berries will blossom, and then after that, it’ll produce berries once each year.

The blossom of a coffee berry it is very small and white. That smells very good however lacks the traditional coffee smell that one might expect, in fact, it smells like a jasmine. Traditionally the average bloom for the plant is about in April then it takes from about April to October for the blossom to become a fruit that can be harvested. The harvest for the coffee berries is anywhere between October to January. When berries form on the tree in October they continue to grow and blossom throughout the whole four months that they are in season. So there is never a time in those four months that a coffee plant is not blossoming, ripening, or being harvested.

When a coffee berry is ready to be harvested, the harvested will know to harvest the berry when they see is has turned from a green color to a red color. All of the coffee plants on this plantation are harvested by hand, one by one. In order to be able to harvest, they will take a basket with a string attached to it and tie it around their hips. From there they will then begin to fill the basket with the ripened berries. Once the basket is completely full it’ll weigh approximately 25 pounds. Many of the workers come from the neighboring country of Nicaragua. Nicaragua makes up approximately 85% of the total pickers on this farm. In order to be able to know how much a worker receives, they will go by the total number of baskets that get picked. While this number seems crazy low for us, receiving only about 2 US dollars per basket picked, this is substantially high for someone in Nicaragua. Two dollars for us is equivalent to nearly 1,800 in their currency.

Each individual can pick anywhere between 12 to 15 and baskets in 7 hours and they work six days a week, from 6:30 in the morning to 1:30 in the afternoon. While the workers are on the farm and they will be provided water electricity and daycare for their children, the only thing that an individual has to pay for during their four times being a picker of the coffee is food. Approximately 150 pickers are hired each year to work on the plantation and less than twenty percent of these individuals are from Costa Rica. Another reason why the pickers only received $2 per basket is that once the coffee berries are completely process the 25-pound basket only yields about five pounds of processed coffee. This is because they have to remove all of the different layers in order to get to the bean inside the berry. There’s approximately three layers around the outside of the bean that have to be removed. At this time, the tour guide then proceeded to take one of the berries off of the plants and show them to us with the different layers. She then asked one of us to taste the bean with the outermost layer removed. With the outermost layer removed, the bean revealed its slimy, sugar layer, this slimy layer is where most of the glucose/'meat' of the berry is stored, and what gives the bean the very fruity, sweet flavor it has.

The tour guide then took us into the plantation she is says at the end of the workday for the pickers a tractor will come by and collect all of the baskets. The baskets will then be placed into a sack, after the person on the tractor checks the quality of the berries in the basket. Once all of the baskets have been put into the sack, they will weigh the sack to determine how much the individual is paid that day.

To see where the tractor takes these berries we then moved into what they call the wet mill. They call this the wet milll because the berries are moved by water power. This is the oldest working wet mill in Costa Rica and is about 100 years old.

Once the coffee reaches the wet mill, the coffee berries are dumped into a container. This container then has a drop floor that is opened up to allow the berries to fall into the water. Good berries will sink to the bottom, and low-quality berries will float to the top. Low-quality berries are often berries that are under ripe and do not have enough of the necessary sugars to be able to sustain the bean within that berry, or they are over dried berries that have gone through the fermentation process and will also lack the flavor that they need. There is then a pipe within the water that is at the bottom that sucks up all of the good dense berries. The floating berries will then go through a hole in the wall and look cleaned out by a net. The berries that were good and were sucked through the tube will then move on to the next stage in the plantation.

Here the coffee will be sent through a strain where the small coffee berries will fall through the strain and the larger berries will move into the fermentation stage of the plantation.

In the fermentation stage the coffee will be left out to ferment for 36 hours, this allows for the break down of the natural sugars found inside of the coffee, this is necessary to allow for a long shelf life for the coffee to avoid spoiling. After fermentation, the coffee is laid out to dry for 5 days in the sun, or they can move the coffee to their drying machine which will allow their coffee to be dried in a manner of 1 day. Typically to save the plantation money and to allow for a more sustainable practice on their farm, the company will place the coffee in the sun to dry naturally, if there is rain to be expected, then the company will utilize the drying machine.

After the coffee is completely dry, they will then remove the last layer on the coffee, the layer on the coffee that allowed for to walk on the coffee without damaging it and that layer that is also important for protecting the coffee from the outside environments such as insects and humidity. Once that layer is removed the coffee will be placed into white burlap bags where they will be placed for two months to continue drying.

Following the three months, the coffee will be washed before being shipped to the roasting stage of the plantation. There are three different ways to wash coffee, each of the ways allows for a different flavor of coffee after roasting. The first method is the full wash process, this is the most common method. This method starts with the removal of that red outer most layer of the coffee through fermentation, once the coffee is completely dried, it will be white and ready to be roasted. This method gives you a Medium, Dark, or light coffee flavor. The second method is the semi-wash. This is when some of the coffee is washed and others are left for a natural wash. In this process you will actually dry the coffee with the sugar still on it, this means the coffee does not do the fermentation step of the coffee plant. When the sugar goes with the bean to be roasted, the raosted will have a more bitter taste and will have a hint of a sweet dark chocolate taste to it. The last washing is the natural wash, this results in many dark colored beans and lacks the removal of the outer layer of the bean and the removal of the sugar. This does mean that you have to dry the beans longer, because their mass is greater, the total dry time for natural washed beans is 10 days. When a natural wash process is done, there is a special machine that is needed to remove those outer layers of the bean, which is not needed in other steps because in the other methods remove the layer before drying making removal easier. Once you have the bean by itself, that’s when you know that the process is all done. These beans will have a honey like flavor to them.

Majority of the coffee we consume is from a full wash cycle.

After the coffee bean has gone through its final stages, it is ready to be shipped out to other countries. 75% of all exports go to the U.S., Japan, and Europe. They will ship the beans out as is to these other countries. Once in country, the companies that bought the beans from the plantation will then roast and blend the product to their liking. The remaining 25% is sold as Three Generation Coffee in Costa Rica.

Another peer of mine on the trip was curious about how decaffeinated coffee is made. Our tour guide explained to us that the coffee that is sent to Gernmany is often made into deceffeinated. The process to make this coffee is to wash a water chemical mixture over the coffee beans. Beyond that, she was unable to provide us with more information because she didn’t much about the process because they do not make the decaf coffee in Costa Rica.

Once we moved out of the plantation, we were able to see where the coffee was laid to dry outside. They have long cement columns where they spread the coffee in a single layer over the concrete. The pad was probably about 100 feet by 60 feet and probably had about 1,000 pounds of coffee spread over it. In order to help allow the coffee to dry faster, the crew will come out every 1 to 1.5 hours with a rake and “mix” the coffee beans around to allow the coffee to dry on all sides. The tour guide allowed us to all take a stab at mixing the coffee beans around with the rake. It was fun in the moment but wouldnt be my favorite job at work.

The last stop of the plant was in the processing room. This is where 25% of their total coffee production is sent to. This is where we got all of the insight on the coffee. We learned about why we have the different colors and flavors of coffee we do, so if you’re a coffee drinker, this is where I would listen up and pay close attention.

The length of time the coffee bean is roasted for will determine the color of the coffee and the flavor we will get, which I am sure everyone knew, but for how long is the science we dont know. To get a dark roast coffee the coffee is roasted for 20 minutes at about 400 degrees celsius, a medium roast is about 17 minutes at 400 degrees celsius, and a light roast is 15 minutes at the same temperature. It is crazy to me how such little time variance results in the different flavors we enjoy in our coffee’s. Another thing we learned is that the darker the roast, the lower the caffeine concentration is. The darker the roast also results in a more bold or stronger flavor, the lighter the roast, the opposite the result will be.

Finally the different flavors and the different roast blends! Here in the processing they showed us four of their different blends: Peaberry, French, House, and Breakfast. The Peaberry blend is actually a blend that is made through coffee beans that are uncommon. Remember how I said there are two beans in every berry? Peaberries are actually the beans that come from berries containing only a single bean. This means the bean is receiving twice the amount of sugar and flavor. This means that the bean and the blend is much sweeter. Only about 5% of all coffee berries end up being peaberries. The french roast is a roast that involves roasting the two beans in the berry at the same time, this results in a nice medium roast flavor, and it about the perfect balance. The house blend is a mix of a light roast, that is blended for about 15 minutes and has a more citric, acidic flavor. The final blend is the Breakfast blend, this blend is a mix of the peaberry and a light french roast.

With this information, this took us to the end of our tour where we were able to try the different coffee blends and shop in the gift shop before headed to our last hotel.

Once we were at our last hotel near the San Jose airport, we settled into our rooms and enjoyed our night reorganizing our bags for our 4 AM flight, until dinner time.

During dinner we were emersed in traditional cultural dances and music played on their national instrument, Marimba. While we were eating, the dancers, well, danced to the music that was being played on the marimba. It was a pleasant surprise when the dancers began to pull some of us into their dance, myself included. It was a lot of fun being able to participate in their dance.

For the remainder of the night, we danced to the music that was played by the instrumentalists and enjoyed our final hours in CR. We talked in our small groups about our experiences, listened to the chaperones tell us about our flights the next day, and participate in a survey about our experience. We then settled in our rooms for an early morning the next day.


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