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Writer's picturePatricia Hebenstreit

Day 12: Wagu Beef and Villa Vanilla tour

Personally, I learned a lot from today, however, still probably consisted of one of my least favorite tours. The gentleman guiding us through this tour was very repetitive and almost boasting his facility and his work. Either way, here is what I learned... Costa Rica uses French Roman law. Which means, when it comes to the ownership of property, that if you have land that is going in used, and someone comes along and pitches a tent on your land, then stays there for a few months, eventually they can earn eh right to that property. Which is a very interesting philosophy. So in order to maintain the land that he owns, they decided to place fencing for cattle to roam. This farm is an experimental farm in many ways. One of the first things they experimented with was the use of red angus genes. However, they weren't fond with the results they found from their work with these genes and eventually ran them out of the herd. They also experimented with Wagu genetics. They liked the results they found from their work with the Wagu and kept the genetics in their cattle and keep them to this day. His work with genetics along with organic practices and dry aging are some of the few things that set this farmers work apart from the rest of the farmers. He wasn't sure how this experimental work would turn out, so he started with a small market, selling only four carcasses online.

Through his work, he has come to learn that there are three types of beef buyers, those who look at price, the connoisseurs, and the greenies (those who only want grass fed beef). Through his work he found his beef was very clean and marbled, although it took a lot of trial and error.

His beef on the farm are only grass fed, no antibiotics or hormones are used, and he slaughters animals when they are ready, not when they reach a certain age. While this costs him more, the people who buy beef from him are willing to spend the extra money to enjoy the uailty product he provides. At the end of the day he is proud of his work.

All cattle on facility are cross bred between Brahma and Wagu genetics, while they experimented with Angus and other beef breeds, these two genetics were their favorite combination, for both hanging and live animals. For the marbling on the cut of beef but also for where the meat is stored on each of the cattle. When raising the cattle they are moved between fields depending on the date of grass growth so they have plenty of room to graze. Grass can take 60 days to grow in the dry season and just 20 in the wet season.

When breeding the cattle, they typically do it within the same season so all calves are born around the same time. Regardless of sex, the animals will be slaughtered for meat. Males will be castrated via rubber band. They know their cattle are ready for slaughter when they weigh about 700 kg. They have even produced the largest cut of steak on this farm, weighing in at 197 oz. When the cattle are slaughtered they get between a 50-60% yield off each cattle. They then dry age the cattle. This is when fat content is important, as the fast helps protect the meat from the many issues that could arise with dry aging, which takes about 45 days to complete and is sanitized with ozone sanitation. They have about 500 head on their production.

Not only do they do cattle, but they also plant crops. They traditionally lant during CR dry season, this allows for them to have ideal conditions for soil to harvest the crops. In order totdo this, they must irrigate. On site they have a stream with a dam. They take the water from the stream and pump it through the irrigation system to water their plants. They traditionally plant sorghum as they need less water than corn and they receive a higher yield. Their irrigation system is set at about 125 psi and shoot about 45 liters of water a second which is close to 700 gallons a minute.

This farm is about 600 hectacres, they use workers from woof to help with the labor in the farm, because they are organic, all weed maintenance is done by hand.

When we asked him why he chooses organic, despite all the challenges, here is what he told us: I choose organic for three reasons:

1. Financial, want to make profit from the cattle

2. Provide organic to get out of commodity pricing, so he would set own prices, as there is no competition between me and others because no one does what I do.

3. If I'm going to work for this, I want it to be a legacy and I want to be proud of my work.

We stopped at a local restaurant and got some food. They had a small market next door, some of us stopped by and got some ice cream. Let me tell you, that was very good. Much richer than back at home.

After this, we headed toward Villa Vanilla to tour a vanilla production. It was cool to see that this facility doesn't just focus their work on vanilla, but they also do many other spices. We started by enjoying a welcoming drink. The drink contained hibiscus, cloves, all spice, cinnamon and vanilla. Most of the crops they have on facility are native to Central America in the rainforest regions. Here on the farm they do their best to replicate that environment for the plants. With hat, we headed into the fields to see what their work looked like. They explained that they have 165 acres in their farm. All of the waste that produced on the farm is used as a compost to help aid in the production of the other plants.

As we were walking we heard this loud chirping noise, this was the sound of scicadas. They told us that they mark the beginning of the dry season. After that we stopped at our first plant. This plant was the rolling stone plant also known as the lipstick plant, this is because the top most leaf are red and look kind of like lips. This is in fact not the flower of the plant. Instead the flower of the plant is so small that the plant produces these red leaves as a signal for the pollinators not to forget to pollinate the plant too. When pollinated the plant produces a blue berry which is only slightly toxic to humans, so we were advised not to eat it. We then trucked up a flight of stairs to their tasting room, where we tried a variety of spiced drinks and desserts, many of which I did not enjoy. We tried Golden Milk (Which was a medicine back in the day), Oatmeal cocoa cookie, vanilla ice cream, and death by chocolate drink.

Most of the spices originated in South East Asia (India area). Here are some of the spices and some of the cool things we learned about them:

Tumeric-

Has anti-inflammatory properties (when mixed with black pepper as the pepper activates the tumeric)

Vanilla-

Most immitated flavor

99% of things that are vanilla are from artificial vanilla

To know that the vanilla is pure vanilla, there will be small black dots mixed within

In the top 3 most expensive spices in the world

Takes 6 to 9 months to prepare

It's chopped finely and mixed with about a 30% alcohol mixture to get the extract

Cloves-

Native to the islands in Indonesia

Natural anogestic (numbing) properties

After tasting the spices, we continued our walk where we were able to see some of the spices growing. Along the way we saw a star fruit tree and vanilla plant.

Our next stop was at a pepper corn plant. Pepper corn was one of the most sought after spices and was traded often. When salt was the primary use of food preservation, pepper complimented salt by covering the smell of (essentially) rotting meat. Pepper comes in two colors: white and black. When the fruit is growing, the color will be green on the plant. When harvested green, the peppercorn, when dried, will turn black. However, when allowing the peppercorn to ripen to a red color on the plant, you will get a white pepper when dried. Pepper is the most famous spice in the world, and in ancient Rome, pepper was actually worth more than gold per ounce. Actually, pepper was so important that they use to take pepper and place it in the nose of their dead as a sign of respect. In order to know the wealth of someone, it use to be measured by the amount of spices you would put on your food. In fact, people out so much spice on their foods that is was unbearable to eat. So much so, when King Louie would consume meals prepared by his people, he asked that they place the spices in the table so he could season the food to his discretion. Which is now why we have salt and pepper shakers on many tables in the food industry. We were also given the opportunity to taste a raw peppercorn off the plant and it vertia my had a kick to it.

We stopped at the allspice tree, which is also called the Jamaica tree in CR. This is because all spice is a slice of it's own and is in fact, not all spices. This is found often in pumpkin spice and ketchup. In fact, during war, warriors had to be prepared always. This met they had to wear their boots all the time, even during sleep. This lead to foot fungus in many of the soldiers. Allspice was placed into their shoes and actually helped prevent and treat foot fungus. Our next stop was the bird of paradise plant which is the member of the ginger family. Another tree we saw was the cinnamon tree. Cinnamon is used to make medicine tea in hospitals to help people who struggle to regulate blood sugar. Sri Lanka is the greatest exporter of cinnamon. When cinnamon is consumed in large amounts, it can cause liver failure. Cinnamon is harvested every 3 to 4 years and you can know that the tree is in fact cinnamon due to the smell of the bark when you scrap away the outer most layer. When you cut a cinnamon tree, similar to Aspen, they will sprout more trees from the base of that tree, root sprout reproduction.

Tumeric was our next stop. Tumeric is a immation of saffron, which is in fact the most expensive spice in the world. Tumeric has natural inflammatory properties.

They didn't share too much about ginger. But they did say that the consumable part of both ginger and tumeric come from the ryzome. Which are the little hairs that sprout off the roots of these plants. You can never fully get rid of a ryzome, unless you torch the plant, meaning the plant will sprout year after year. Making these two plants very robust plants.

The next most expensive spices in the market is Cardimum, which they also grow on site. Cardimum is often mixed with coffee to help make coffee's natural acidic pH be more neutralized. Guatamala is the number one producer of cardimum. This spice is also used in breath fresheners, back in the day, you had to have the seed of this plant before you could see the king to ensure good breath. In India, all dairy products contain cardimum.

Our last stop in the forest tour was the vanilla plant. Vanilla is a part of the orchid family, and it in fact the only edible orchid. The fruit of the flower only blossoms between December to April and only blooms once a year. The vanilla uses a host tree to provide structure necessary for growth and shade. Vanilla has to be manually pollinated or it simply would not happen in nature. Only about 1% of all vanilla is naturally pollinated. Vanilla has both reproductive organs. In order to pollinate the vanilla, you must puncture the membrane of the vanilla with a toothpick like tool and simply press the male and female parts together. Only about 70% of the flowers are pollinated, so you do not stress the plant and prevent the growth of vanilla for future years. The flower of the vanilla blossoms only once per year for about 8 hours, if you miss pollination, you're out of luck until next year.

We then made a stop at the drying facility. In here they were drying pepper and cocoa. Vanilla is cured not dried. Vanilla has to be in a cooler covered as it is very delicate. If you dry vanilla out too quickly, it will not have the time needed to develop it's properties (aroma).each day vanilla is taken from the cooler and played out for about 1 hour and then placed back into the cooler for insulation. You keep the vanilla covered and insulated to avoid over stimulation. The inside of the vanilla is small black beads, when you see this in your vanilla flavored product that's how you know that this is pure vanilla and not imitation vanilla.

Our final stop was at the cocoa tree. This is the ancient fruit of Central America and S. Mexico. They used to use the cocoa seed as a form of currency. Cocoa death by chocolate drink use to be made for higher members of society. Cocoa comes from a flowering bud, because it is not seasonal, buds are produced all year round. It takes about 4 to 5 months to ripen the fruit of the cocoa tree. The tree produces about 7 or 8 thousand buds a year but only about 70 to 80 of the buds become pollinated and make the fruit. If all of the buds beared fruit the tree would die under stress. When drying cocoa, you cannot get it too hot or it'll mold and lose it's nutrient value. The husk of the cocoa is removed because it is gritty and bitter. Milk chocolate is only about 5 to 10% actual cocoa. The cocoa we tried only contained cocoa, sugar, and vanilla (it tasted very good).

Finally, we learned where artificial vanilla comes from. You can either get the flavor from fermenting rice or for a gland in a beaver that is located just above the anal gland. When a beaver is excited or frightened it releases a hormone from this gland and is collect and made into vanilla in a lab.

We ended the night with dinner. I video called CJ for a while and called my parents to talk to them in my last few remaining days here in CR.


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