Regardless of the type of coffee that you prefer for your daily jolt, there is a good chance that your favorite brew comes from a coffee farm in Costa Rica. While Costa Rica may have become known in the last few years for its miles of beautiful beaches and lush jungle landscape, this small nation along the Pacific Ocean also happens to be one of the most desirable locations in the world for growing and harvesting coffee plants.
What many coffee enthusiasts may not know is that the coffee plants grown in Costa Rica face a tremendous challenge. Each plant is sourced from a small contingent of original Ethiopian plants. The downside to this is that the plants are all similar genetically. This also means they are extremely vulnerable to changes in the climate.
Most of the coffee in Costa Ria is grown in Monteverde. This misty region is situated about a three-hour drive from the capital of San Jose. The shady, often humid climate here is perfect for cultivating coffee plants, including the Coffee Arabica bean, which originally made its way from the highland forests of Ethiopia. Today, that bean is actually a rarity in its native land, instead can be found all over the world, including in the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa. In Costa Rica, as in other parts of the world, farmers coax incredibly small seedlings to grow.
The round, green structures found on the Arabica plant are known as coffee cherries. At the appropriate time, these berries are harvested and then separated from the bean and later ground into coffee. Unfortunately, warming temperatures have resulted in the plants experiencing additional stress while also subjecting the plants to greater invasion of the coffee berry borer pest and the coffee rust fungus, the effect of which have virtually devastated many coffee crops.
One a coffee cherry ripens, it turns from its natural green hue to various shades of purple, red, and yellow. Coffee farmers harvest the cherries, collecting them in baskets known as canastas. In Costa Rica, many of the coffee workers are actually Nicaraguans, and are typically paid about $1.50 for every basket picked.
After the cherries are picked, they are washed, dried, and then roasted. One of three processes may be used for roasting the cherries; dry, semi-dry, or wet. A dry roasting process involves cleaning the cherries and then drying them without separating them from the coffee bean first. In the wet process, the bean and cherry are separated and then washed and dried immediately. Workers separate the bean from the cherry in the semi-dry processing method, which is also sometimes known as honey processing, because it reveals the sticky somewhat sweet inner coating of the cherry.
Once the bean and the cherry are separated, sticky beans are collected in large containers and stored for up to 15 days. The beans are typically stored for about six months before they are roasted.
After they have been roasted, the coffee beans are either sold as whole beans or ground and packaged.
