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Published: March 1st 2013
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After 20 km of steep dirt roads, we arrived right around sunset, checked in, freshened up, and sat down with Andres the owner where he helped us book the rest of our trip. We booked tours for the next day, transportation to Arenal (final stop) and taxi to San Jose. It was a relief off our shoulders—nothing left to “worry” about. Once that was all done, we set out to explore this cute mountain top town. We walked through the town in about 20 minutes. Monte Verde is a very quaint little town with a few souvenir stores, a couple other stores and lots of places to eat. We decided to eat at this little house looking spot right next to our B&B. One thing that we realized about Costa Rica, was that everywhere we went was very consistent. No matter where you went in town, the postcards were $.65 and the rice, beans, plantain and steak meal was $10.00 – this was true for the whole country (at least in our destinations). Unlike Mexico (which is the only other Central American Country I have been to)where you can find a post card in one spot for $.10 and then across
the street is $.35 – and food varies from place to place as well. Costa Rica also has a 13% tax rate and a10% service charged onto everything – all food, drinks, and items. Evan’s favorite Costa Rican meal of the trip with this chicken fried rice. It resembled close to the Asian version, but slightly different. I loved; rice, beans and plantains (&hot sauce of course). Delicious. After our delicious dinner, we wrote a bunch of post cards and was off to sleep busy day the next day. We woke up early, ate a delicious breakfast and then were whisked away to Selvadura Canopy Tours.We met two groups of Americans, one group was a couple from NYC, Gillian and James, they soon turned out to be our NBF’s (New Best Friends) of the trip. Zip lining was so much fun – We had both done it before in South Africa, but this one was in the jungle – flying over and through the most thick, lush scenery. It was very very cool! We had 17 zips and we all did the Tarzan swing. I was terrified but there were two 5 year olds on our tour and they both
did it, so I had to do it too. CRAZY.The last zip line of our tour was 1 KM long, across the valley, check out the video – Evan and I rode together because you have to have more weight to get across the thing. Super fun and super scary. We ended our tour and walked all through the property, over rope bridges around the property, into the humming bird area where we saw very exotic, colorful humming birds, and finally into the reptile sanctuary where we saw tons of crazy snakes, frogs and lizards. One of the lizards that is becoming extinct in the wild in Costa Rica is called the “Jesus Christ Lizard” – I thought that was funny because in Quepos we saw a full bus stop abruptly because a “Jesus Christ Lizard” was in the middle of the road. After I found out that was the real name I can’t help but think the bus driver stopped because he didn’t want to run over JC. Haha!! After a full half-day of zip lining and touring we headed back to town ate lunch and then got picked up for our Coffee, Chocolate and Sugar Cane tour. We
happened to be on the same tour as James and Jillian – so we started our afternoon/evening of fun with them on this tour. This to me was one of the most interesting parts of the whole trip, but I am going to bullet point it all because it's a lot of information.
Coffee • Coffee Beans grow inside of a berry
• Coffee Plants can live up to 150 years
• There is a 2 week picking season, when the berries are ripe, if you don't pick during that time, your whole crop is ruined
• It takes 40 berries to make ONE cup of coffee
• Only 10%!o(MISSING)f all berries picked will make good coffee
• By adding milk and sugar to your coffee, it takes away the caffeine
• The most caffeinated part of the coffee plant is in the leaves
• The lighter the roast the more caffeine
• The beans are actually the size of a large sunflower seed (the inside part) and it takes the normal coffee shape, when it is roasted – it literally pops like popcorn with heat.
Coffee Process 1) Berries are picked
- 80%!o(MISSING)f the pickers come into the
country from Nicaragua or Panama to help during the picking season – they have special permission from the government
- the pickers get paid $2.00 per basket—The baskets are about the same size as one of our styrofoam coolers
2) Berries are de-pulped
- Meaning they outside shell of the berries get taken off and you are left with the “seed”
3) Coffee is dried
- In a big green house
4) Coffee is peeled
- Once it is dry it has a tough outer shell
- It is snapped open and separated from its outer shell
5) Coffee is roasted
- Coffee is exported unroasted – and then roasted according to the tastes of the destination
The Coffee Story – Please keep in mind this is what they told us – Coffee might have other origins
1500 hears ago a farmer noticed his goats were going crazy, running around and acting nuts. The farmer followed his goats to see what they were eating and he realized they were eating the leaves of a plant he didn’t recognize. He took the leaves to monks in a
far away town and they too had never seen this plant before. The monks made tea out of these leaves and they were affected similar to the goats. Leavesof the coffee plan have the most caffeine in them then any other part of the tree and it goes down from there. The berries would come next, then the seed, and then I could only assume the peeled and roasted coffee bean. Some animals with 3-4 stomachs would get the same affect by eating the berries but humans cannot break down the berries, which is why we make coffee from the seed/pit. In Arabia Turkey coffee berries were in a fire, the whole town smelled like roasted coffee -- it was only the coffee that survived – and only then did they think to roast the insides.
Chocolate • Comes from the fruit of the Cacao plants
• The fruit holds between 20-40 seeds or cacao beans in each fruit
• The seeds before fermentation taste like lychee or guava but have a slimy eyeball texture
• Seeds must ferment for a week
• Then they are dried
• Roasted
• Ground into Coco nibs
o At this state they only are 50%!(NOVERB)
coco
o In order to achieve a higher percentage they have to be pressed
o When they are pressed, the bi product, is coco butter - Which we all know is great for cracked or dry skin or lips
• Once in coco nib phase—the proper amount of sugar and spices are added and then it is ground together to become chocolate
• *White chocolate has zero Cacao in it.
Sugar Cane • Sugar cane grows in stocks like bamboo
• Grows two sections a month – so very quick
• To grown another sugar cane plant all you would have to do is plant two sections and water it – it would start growing
• When Sugar Cane is pressed, it only equals 7%!s(MISSING)ugar
• It is then boiled, the water evaporates and only sugar remains
• It is then spun where a machine would separate the molasses from the sugar
• The sugar is brown sugar
• White sugar is bleached sugar
After a great time at the Don Juan’s Coffee Plantation we headed back into town. James, Gillian, Evan and I watched the sunset over the Gulf, drank beer and wine, played cards outside and
got to know each other, went out to dinner and went dancing at this local bar. The local bar was funny because there was a big group of high school-ers from the US there and then a ton of 18+ year old locals watching the Americans. Pretty entertaining.
The next morning we ate another great breakfast and were off to Arenal, our last stop on our vacation.
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