Of Coffee and Horses.

Hola a todos,
Today has been a day full of adventures.



This morning, I toured a coffee farm just outside of Boquete, in an area called Jaramillo Alto. The farm is about 5 hectares (a hectare is a metric measurement of area. 5 hectares is about 12 acres). It's owned by a man named Don Tito. Don Tito grows eight varieties of coffee, including a variety called "Geisha Coffee." It's the second-most expensive variety of coffee in the world. His farm can produce up to 7,000 kilos of coffee in a good year.

Don Tito was a pretty interesting guy. He used to be a vegetable farmer, but he decided that he wanted to start growing coffee. The problem with growing coffee is that it takes five years for coffee plants to start producing consistently, and it's a very labor-intensive crop. In addition, in order to grow arabica coffee, the idea elevation is 1500 meters above sea level. Don Tito had land, but he had no idea what elevation it was. It turned out that his farm was precisely at 1500 meters above sea level. Don Tito named his farm "La Milagrosa," or "the miraculous one," because everything seemed miraculous when he started to pursue his dream of growing coffee.




Coffee doesn't look like a bean when it's growing. The coffee fruit is actually called a cherry, and it can be either red or yellow. It's a real fruit, and it's very sweet. The cherries should be picked when they are very ripe. If they are picked when they are green, they ruin the flavor of the coffee blend. Then the fruit is separated from the beans and discarded (in the case of Don Tito, he recycles the pulp as fertilizer for the farm). There are usually two beans in each cherry. If there's only one, this is called a peaberry, and it's highly prized for its stronger flavor. If there are three beans, they're called fenomenales, and they generally have less flavor than the others. The beans are dried in the sun for several weeks, then dried indoors for three months more.




There's an extra paper-like layer that has to be removed from the bean. The beans then are finally roasted, after which they look like the coffee you've seen in the store.






There are lots and lots of factors that go into making a good coffee. Don Tito blends several varieties of beans to make his coffee. If the beans float in water, they are poor quality, and they're discarded. When the coffee is roasted, it's roasted at 250ºC for 12 minutes. The beans make a popping noise as they roast. After 12 minutes, the beans are considered to be lightly roasted. After another 40 seconds, they are a medium roast, and another 40 seconds after that, it's a dark roast. After that, the coffee is burnt, so it's a delicate process.




It was a tasty experience.




This afternoon, I decided I wanted to go horseback riding. The countryside is beautiful outside of Boquete, and the Volcán Barú looks awesome from any angle. It's been a while since I rode a horse, so I'm quite proud to say that I did the challenging trail without a problem. There was a stretch of trail that went straight up a muddy hillside, so that was thrilling.