Coffee!

We just returned from a visit to a local coffee farm - organic coffee farm actually, which is unusual in Costa Rica. 

The owner is an American guy, Ernie, who has lived with his wife here for over 30 years - they raised their kids here - Cris and Tina - so the farm is called Finca Cristina and the brand is Cafe Cristina!

Ernie gave us the grand tour - might have spent a bit too much time talking about how he controls fungus - although I found it fascinating for whatever reason (this is where Stine will tell you it is because I am a nerd of some sort - but come on - who wouldn't love fungus and bug control in a rain forest?!)

To add nitrogen to the soil they have planted trees and then they prune the trees and leave the branches on the ground along with lots of weeds.  Then end result is he doesn't have to add chemical fertilizers - he does have a potassium issue but is experimenting with adding some volcanic soil...or something like that!

So here is an overview of the coffee growing process -just because it is still fresh in my mind...so here it goes:

First - they actually do the harvest 4-5 times a year and it takes about 10 days to do the harvesting.  This is not a big farm but he produces about 25,000 lbs of coffee a year.

Once it is harvested it is brought to this machine where it is "pulped"- the green thing to the left.

The best way to undertand this is the raw coffee is like a cherry - and the pit is the coffee bean.  So the pulp process smashes up the 'berry' and it takes about 6 lbs of berry to get 1 lb of bean (then the roasting process reduces the weight another 20%)...I remember weird stuff!

So then the pulp is composted and he has a huge pile of "american earthworms" that makes this world class soil they reuse in other parts of the farm.  During harvest the area below is full all the way to the top of the conveyor belt.

The pulped bean is then washed to remove "slime" and then from there the beans are laid out to dry completely here:

Once the beans are dried they can be safely stored for one year.  You can see the 100 lb bags in the back of the above shot.

But wait - its not ready for roasting yet!  Then when it is time to roast the bean needs to get a "husk" removed then the beans are sorted for quality - this is done with air blowing the husks away and the sorting table itself is like one of those games many of us had as kids which was either hockey or football and air blew threw holes and the hole thing vibrated.  In this process the lighter "bad" beans go to one side and the good beans go to the other.

He says about 90% of his beans are good and the other 10% are grade 2 and 3.  He sells the bad stuff (grade 3 to a local wholesaler) and sells the grade 2 stuff at a local flea market...the best stuff is what he sells online directly to companies or individuals.

I'm not a big coffee drinker but when in Rome - even both kids had some too (just a little with lots of milk and sugar)....so wish us well tonight!