VACATIONS FROM HOME: COSTA RICA COFFEE

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

COSTA RICA COFFEE

A BAD CUP OF JOE IS ILLEGAL

Growing coffee in Costa Rica is serious business. According to a law passed there in 1989 only Arabica coffee beans can be grown by Costa Rican coffee farmers. Although Arabica already accounts for 60% of the world’s coffee and is more difficult to grow than hardier stocks of beans, the mature bean is smooth and sweet, and creates a well-balanced cup of coffee when brewed. The other major coffee bean is the Robusta. It may be easier to grow and more resistant to bugs, but it is also higher in caffeine than the Arabica and because of this has a bitter rubbery taste.

JANET PICKING COFFEE

Coffee is a relatively new crop for Costa Rica, first introduced in the late 1700’s. Back then anyone who wanted to grow beans was given land by the government to get started. Coffee quickly became an important and lucrative crop for Costa Rica. Today, coffee plantations, mostly found in the Central Valley where rich volcanic soil helps grow a more unique and stronger flavor in the beans, produce roughly 1.4 million bags of 60 kilograms of coffee yearly, the monies generated paying for roads and ports and infrastructure improvements.

Costa Rica is the perfect place to grow coffee. Arabica thrives in high altitudes with constant warm temperatures and plenty of rain. Temperatures in the higher elevations of Costa Rica vary only ten degrees or so throughout the year, roughly from 63 to 80, and much of the crop is grown on plantations from 2,400 to 3,200 feet in elevation. Average rainfall is anywhere from 78 to 118 inches per year and the soil, enriched by volcanic activity, oxygenates the beans. All of these elements alter the aroma, body, flavor and acidity of the coffee. Similarly, Kona coffee, often considered one of the best in the world is grown in fairly identical conditions with the volcanos, rainfall and elevations of the Big Island.

COFFEE AT DON JUAN CR

CHORREADOR

It is possible to go on a coffee plantation tour to learn the entire procedure, from picking the cherry beans all to way to several methods of brewing coffee. Your favorite highly caffeinated traveling couple went on just such a tour at Don Juan Plantations in Monteverde, not for from the Cloud Forest Reserve, a major eco-tourism destination for Costa Rica.

The informative tour not only showed us the entire procedure of coffee but of cocoa beans and later sugar cane, on a three for one tour. We learned that espresso doesn’t really have a lot of caffeine in it as the water just shoots through the grinds rather than steeping and we learned how to roast green beans in a frying pan and brew a cup of incredibly flavorful coffee in a Costa Rican Chorreador, a wooden-stand drip method of brewing coffee. Of course, Team VFH likes our coffee gadgets and bought a carved and decorated chorreador at the gift shop where we drank so much more free coffee that afterwards we decided to run alongside the Arenas Travel tour van rather than ride inside.

DON JUAN TOURS MONTEVERDE COSTA RICA