What does Costa Rica have to do with me tasting coffee in Montreal you ask? I thought I would share this experience with you so you can learn a bit more about coffee and because this was such a wonderful tour I wanted to tell you about it. Costa Rica has the ideal climate, right latitude, high altitudes and rich volcanic soil for growing Arabica coffee. Top quality Arabica coffee was introduced to Costa Rica directly from Ethiopia. The Arabian bean has 1% caffeine which is considered low, it produces a sweeter, smoother taste and it is believed to be one of the oldest coffee bean to be cultivated. This is the type of bean used for specialty roasts.
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| Left to right: Duncan, Me, Aruna, Don Juan himself, Belinda (on her knees), Eimear, Simon & Tony |
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| Baby coffe plant |
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| Germinating coffee bean |
This small family operated coffee farm has chosen to only produce locally therefore making most of their revenue on the actual coffee tours. If you are in Monteverde this tour is a must. Our 2 hour tour started with a display of the growth of a coffee bean tree.
After learning about the growth of the coffee tree we visited the plantation where we got to see the trees and the beautiful first sight of the flowers and the green and red berries. The flowers appear at about 3 years and the beans at about 5 years.
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| Would look & smell lovely in a wedding bouquet! |
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| These babies are ready! |
The red ones which are ripe are handpicked and immediately taken to the pulping machine where the skin & pulp are seperated from the bean. They then pass through water chanels where the floating beans can be removed. The heavier ripe beans sink to the bottom. The next step is to have them placed in a fermentation tank where natural enzymes have the dirty job of dissolving the mucilage (layer attached to the parchment). The bean then goes back to the water channels and then laid out in the sun to ferment and also sun dried which will enable the layers of skin to be removed.  |
| Coffee bean with parchment |
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| Silver skin layer drying off |
The beans are sorted by size right after the pulping stage as the size is one of the factors determining the quality of the bean. They are sorted into 3 different categories.
1. Larger premium beans are roasted and packed whole.
2. Medium coffee beans are roasted & grinded before the are packed.
3. The smallest beans are roasted, grinded, flavored & then packed.
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| Larger bean, medium size and smaller ones |
The workers must rely on their sense of smell and timing in order to have the perfect roast. A coffee roast is roasted for a shorter period of time than an espresso roast. A coffee roast which is lightly roasted will have a lighter taste & more caffeine however a bean which is roaster longer will have a coarser more bold taste & less caffeine. The darkest roast is an Espresso roast. Since the Espresso is a dark roast it is the bean that has the least caffeine however you have to take into account the ratio of bean/water as well which is why a cup of espresso has more caffeine than a cup of coffee. (Did I just confuse anyone?) :-P
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| At the end of our tour we tested the harvest! |
