Organic Coffee in Costa Rica

Twenty minutes across the hills from Atenas is El Toledo organic coffee farm where the owner, Gabriel gave us a tour of his farm and shared with us his passion for organic farming.  This passion began about 20 years ago when Gabriel was sick.  He came to realize that the chemicals and fertilizers that he was using with his farm were causing the illness.  Sixteen years ago, he became certified organic and dutifully pays the $1500 annual fee in order to keep his certification.  He is no longer ill and is very enthusiastic about this way of farming.  He has joined 6 other coffee farms to marketing and sell organically grown Costa Rican coffee.

Learning what organic means to coffee farms

We got a tour of the farm, including a walk on the hillside around the coffee plants.  I have been wondering how the coffee is cared for and harvested since it is done manually, on very steep hillsides.  After walking part of those steep hillsides, I realize that the workers have the balance of mountain goats. And I had the balance of the Turk to help me.
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You can start to see the steepness of the hill

walking the coffee trail up the hill

On our walk - climb Gabriel pointed out interesting plants and insects which are all part of his ecosystem.  We saw a large beehive that is important because the bees pollinate the coffee to grow a bean.

stick bug

huge beatle

 I noticed several beautiful flowers at ground level that looked like the flowers of orchids. Gabriel said these are called 'resurrection flowers' because they bloom around Easter time each year. They are not orchids, but more similar to bromeliads. And I saw a cashew tree and fruit for the first time. Did you know that the nut hangs off the end of the fruit? No wonder cashews are so expensive - there is only 1 per fruit.  The cashew is poisonous until it is roasted, but you can eat the fruit.  It is slightly sweet, but it makes your mouth dry.

Resurrection flowers

see the grey think hanging from the end of the orange fruit - that's the cashew!

They have planted 15 cocao trees to see what happens and it looks like the pods are very healthy.

Cocao pods

The Turk had a chance to wear a picking basket to see how it would be to pick beans.  He signed up for next year's harvest - November through January.

The Turk gets ready for harvest

Because this farm is a microfarm, they can get by with small equipment to process the beans. We saw two machines - one separates the husk, fruit and bean while the other roasts the bean.  In between these steps, they must dry out the beans in the sun which takes 6 days if there is no rain.

machine that separates the bean from husk, fruit

Drying screens - beans are turned over every 2 hours for six days

Roaster

Gabriel's wife made us coffee using the traditional methods of pouring hot water into a cotton bag filled with coffee beans.  We tasted light, medium and dark roast.  Medium was everyone's favorite.  I found out that light has the highest caffeine because less is roasted out of it - who knew!

Time for tasting!