Today in Costa Rica our group had the opportunity of visiting and touring the Doka Coffee Plantation. On the tour, we not only enjoyed scenic overlooks from the side of a mountain, but got a step-by-step walk-through of the coffee production process.

After an in-depth experience, I find the coffee production process surprisingly intricate and difficult. First, the physical harvesting of the coffee from the plant requires tough labor. I found it interesting that many migrant workers from Nicaragua travel to work on the plantation because of the higher wages they receive by working in Costa Rica. This very much parallels the idea of migrant workers coming to the United States in search of a job where they make a high wage than in their home country. After the actual selection of the coffee beans, getting a usable product is an intricate task. The coffee beans go through a series of filtration, shell removal, and drying so that the desired part of the coffee bean can be obtained. It seems almost unbelievable that 25 pounds of coffee beans only produce about 5 pounds of useable coffee seeds.

On the engineering side, the production of coffee requires a lot of machinery and moving parts. I found the hydro system used to separate the coffee bean quality to be very fascinating (the good coffee beans would sink while the bad coffee beans would float). Moreover, the frictional removal of the shell and fermentation processes seem very efficient and cost-effective. I think it is even more impressive that this system was designed and built decades ago and is still functioning at a high capacity. 

Overall, our adventure at the coffee plantation not only supplied beautiful scenery, but it gave me a newfound respect for coffee as a commodity. Also, I can now officially say that I have had Costa Rican coffee – the best coffee in the world!