Welcome to Costa Rica! Where everything can be described in two words, Pura Vida! The first thing that we did when we got to Pura- Err… Costa Rica, we went to the car rental, picked up our car, and went to our first activity, after a day-long journey. Now, I don’t know how you travel, but this is pretty normal for me. The saving grace was that it was a coffee tour. The Espiritu Santo Coffee tour in the town of Naranjo to be specific.
Our tour guide was Ronni (Is that how you spell it?), and he took us to our first destination, the coffee plant. Now there are a few things about coffee beans that you have to know to make the best coffee. The first of which being which beans to pick, sure it might seem like it doesn’t matter, but it does! Most coffee beans have two actual beans inside of them. But some very special ones have only one. Those are the best ones, but the chances you get to drink that type of coffee for even a week, are about as good as winning the lottery, on powerball. The reason it’s better is because all the caffeine is concentrated into one bean, making the flavor more rich. The other thing about making good coffee is that it’s best if it’s sun dried, not machine-dried. It helps with the flavor.
Ronni took us to the part of the tour where we got to see how the coffee beans are ground and packaged. Usually you’re not allowed to see this part of the plantation because of food safety restrictions. But today no one was working in the packaging room so it was okay to see. There were two enormous grinders, and a LOT of coffee packages filled with ground coffee beans. We got to smell two bags of ground coffee that were yet to be packaged. We also got to see the one successful cocoa plant on the plantation. Cocoa plants grow better at lower elevation. Finally the last step is drinking the coffee, which we actually got to do! Did you know that the holes in coffee bags are to make sure the bag doesn’t explode? Cool, right ?
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