Coffee beans!
Congratulations to Daisy and her employees for winning ‘Best Café in Costa Rica,’ which pretty much means best coffee in the world. When we visited Daisy’s coffee plantation, we compared organic and non-organic coffee fields. One huge difference is that because the organic fields are ‘untouched’ it takes longer to care for them, which in the long run costs more than it’s worth to keep up with them. The organic plants look worse than the non-organic because of its natural way. Daisy tried the organic way for 3 years until she went back to non-organic. Daisy does business with Japan, Europe, and the United States. Her ideal situation is to only sell her coffee in Costa Rica, but the competition is so fierce because there are so many coffee farmers in CR.
We later visited another coffee plantation named Cafe Britt. Cafe Britt's tour was a little more showy and commercially. We really didn't get to actually tour the fields, but I learned a lot more about actually making coffee. They explained how the coffee is made from the time they plant the seed to the time they bag the beans.
The original bean that is taken from the plant is not what is left after the entire process. About 20 % of the bean is left after all the cleaning and roasting. They are required by the government to recycle and or reuse the other 80% of the bean. They use this left over 80% as planting seeds for the next batch of upcoming coffee.
Cafe Britt is extremely popular in Costa Rica, but it is a little pricey for the natives. My host family buys cheaper coffee. But ironically, i have noticed that not that many ticos like coffee.
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