Coffee - Post 1

So today we visited a coffee plantation, del Cafe Tal. It was nothing like I thought that is was going to be, I think even better. Let me first begin my explaining that it probably took us an hour or so to get there, mainly because once you get out of San Jose the roads are pretty much dirt roads, and so our poor bus driver that to drive to an extremely high altitude with 30 students lives at stake, up this huge hill. It was crazy. Anyways, so once we got up the hill so far, the bus couldn't go any farther and we had to stop and walk the rest of the way, about a mile. We stopped along the way to check out the organic plants, but there were not that many of them because the owner, Daisy, stopped producing organiz coffee beans about three years ago for many reasons. The first is because she wasn't really making much money on them, and they actually cost more to produce, the other reason is because they take longer to produce and she wasn't able to get as many beans out of the plants. So, our next stop was to visit the regular coffee bean plants. The plants were nothing like I expected them to be, and the beans were nothing like I expected them to taste like. The beans were little red balls, that is because they weren't very far along in the growth process. The particular beans that I ate won't actually be ready to eat until this coming December. Because of that, they didn't really have a strong coffee taste, I was kind of disappointed. The engineer pointed out that the plants did not have to be covered with shade by trees because of the high altitude. At that altitude, it is normally very cloudy, so its just a waste of money to invest in trees for shade. After about a mile of walking, we finally got to a little barn with some picnic tables. We sat down and the owner, Daisy and the coffee engineer talked to us about their production. It was really interesting because I did a little research about the Fair Trade, which Daisy does not use in her operations simply because she thinks that she can do it just as well. Pretty much, the Fair Trade Act was created in order to control global poverty and sustainability. It creates the opportunity for all organizations, both in developing countries and non developed countries to exist by regulating social and eviornmental standards as well as pricing. The whole idea is based around the concept of allowing smaller businesses to compete in a global economy while creating a business atmosphere that is secure in all senses. Daisy actually grows the coffee beans, picks them along with the help of her workers, processes them, markets them, and sells them. She recently won an award for the best coffee beans in Costa Rica, so she has already sold alot of beans that aren't even ready yet. I'll be the first to admitt that I have never liked coffee, but I tasted it anyways. It was AMAZING. Diasy sells her coffee beans for $15 per pound, and from that usually only makes about $1.50, it's crazy, but she loves doing it. When we left the plantation, she took us to her coffee shop, which was so cute. Alot of buildings in Costa Rica don't look that clean on the outside, but her coffee shop was perfect. She invited us in and showed us the machine that she uses to grind the coffee beans and the product package that she will soon be using. Because of this trip I have a whole new understanding of the process it takes to create coffee, it is alot of work for not much return.