Before heading up to the mountains and the rain forest, we did a coffee tour! I've been excited about taking this tour for a long time and it was fantastic!
The gal who did the tour was great - because there were only the 4 of us plus 2 others, it was very personal and we had a lot of fun visiting with her!
There is a lot of coffee grown in Costa Rica and it was interesting to hear the conditions that determine how the coffee will turn out!
The place was beautiful and we walked around with our guide giving us all kinds of info about coffee growing!
Of course I have forgotten all the facts and figures that our guide gave us but we all had no idea how long it takes from a seed to bear coffee beans - try 3 years!!!!
Coffee beans are picked by hand in Costa Rica - Rene offered to show us how the basket is attached and the ripe beans are picked - most can pick 7 to 8 baskets an hour!!
Many plants and trees are planted around the coffee beans to protect them - this particular fruit tree was in their garden and even though I can't remember the name of it, the fruit was opened so we could taste the pulpy stuff around the seed - the taste was great!
Here is my sideways coffee plant!
We learned all about roasting the coffee beans and that even roasting the beans a minute too long can make the taste bitter.
At the end of the tour we headed into the auditorium to learn how to "taste" coffee - very interesting!! The coffee was amazing!
And of course the tour wouldn't be complete without heading to the gift shop! There were around 7 different coffees you could taste along with chocolate covered fruits and nuts - you can bet my bag was full of coffee and chocolate when I left!
It was a truly educational tour and I'm so glad we had the opportunity to take it before we headed to our place!
2 comments:
What a cool tour! Would love that!
How fun and interesting! I will ALWAYS think of you when I think of coffee :) And GREAT pic of you and Glenn by the way!
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