Today we visited the Doka Coffee Plantation in Alejuela and got to see how they produce their coffee from the moment it is planted in the ground to finish. We were greeted with a sample coffee with chocolate and cinnamon. As we sipped, we were serenaded with songs on a xylophone.
And then we were off on our tour! We started out with seeing how the coffee plant grows over time once it’s planted. When the plant blooms, the leaves look like butterfly wings and those serve as protection to the rest of the plant once it blooms more. After planting, it takes 3 years before the coffee is ready for harvest. When workers are going through the plant and the coffee bean is red that means it’s ready to be harvested.
The coffee then goes to production! It starts out with being poured into a reservoir filled with water, the good coffee sinks and the bad coffee floats because the good coffee is more dense. The good coffee is then taken to another machine where the outer red skin is peeled off. The beans are then separated by quality and fermented. After that, the beans are taken to dry outside for 5 days. After the coffee is dry, it is stored for 3 months incased in a shell that protects it from insects and the humidity. Once that shell is removed, you have the golden bean! Then it goes off to be roasted!
The machines that they use for all of the coffee production were water powered and 100 years old, the oldest wet mill in Costa Rica that is still working. The main thing that surprised me about the coffee production was how it wasn’t modernized. But, it matched the Costa Rican expectation of sustainability with the water power. I was also surprised by how long the entire process took, which was 3 years and 4 months. The process to go from a simple seed of the coffee plant to a bag of roast was simple yet complex. Doka has a system that works for them and they been stick to it. If it produces good quality coffee, why change it? They are one of the best coffee providers in Costa Rica, and many large corporations and trade relay on them as well. For someone who loves to drink coffee, I would always get lots of extra fluff in my drinks like milk, sugar, cream, caramel. So, when we were sampling the different roasts at the end of the tour, I was a little worried about trying pure black coffee, but I really liked it! In all honesty, however, I think I may have hyped it up a little too much. It was delicious but I didn’t feel like it was life changing. But, that is coming from someone who rarely drinks black coffee.
Overall, I throughly enjoying visiting Doka today! I bought two roasts to take home for my dad and I (I hope he likes them 🤞) so I will get to take a little bit of Costa Rica home with me. Until tomorrow, blog! Adios!