Coffee Time

This week we have had the opportunity to be tourists whilst on our Costa Rican adventure. Zoë's parents arrived on Monday (or at least they were supposed to arrive on Monday, but it turned out to be about 1.30am on Tuesday morning, delayed due to snow at Newark Airport) which means that we've had a busy week visiting various tourist attractions. And Colin has had to drive on Costa Rican roads for the first time.

On Tuesday, we visited the Doka Estate, a coffee plantation and wet mill about 10 km north of Alajuela. On a previous visit to Costa Rica we went on the tour at Cafe Britt, which is very local to us (about a 45 minute walk), so we thought we'd see what a different coffee place was like. Coffee has been grown on the Doka Estate since 1919, and run by the Vargas family since 1940. This give the coffee it's name: Tres Generaciones/Three Generations.

As we arrived about midday we decided to have lunch before the tour; tour and lunch combined cost $26 each. This gave Zoë's parents an early opportunity to sample a traditional casado and fresco. The tour was due to start at 1.30pm, but our guide (Carlos) came to get us about 12.45 to tell us that he would start the tour early (at 1pm) and that we could spend the next 15 minutes, if we wished, in their new (not yet open to the public) butterfly garden. This was still in the process of getting its finishing touches, but looks like it will be really nice once completed. Already there were many butterflies to watch around the new plantings.

The coffee tour itself was very interesting and informative, and very different to that of Cafe Britt. Where Cafe Britt use actors to bring the history of coffee production in Costa Rica to life, this tour is more focused on providing us with information. And lots of it. There were also a lot less people than when we did the Cafe Britt tour - the tour started with just the 4 of us, and two other people joined us later. This made it feel much more personal. We were shown plants at different stages of growth, the structure of the coffee fruit (which we learned belongs to the cherry family), we went into the plantation and looked at ripe, underripe and overripe fruits and visited the wet mill where the beans are sorted, peeled and then dried.

Finally we visited the roasting area and shown the different types of Coffee that the estate produces. We then, of course, had the opportunity to sample and purchase the different roasts. All the way through the tour Carlos shared his enthusiasm and knowledge about the Doka estate and its processes, and answered every question posed to him.

Despite the wonderful tour, all the tasting, and two months in Costa Rica, Zoë still doesn't like coffee!