Today was our first experience learning all about Costa Rican coffee and why it is a commodity. At Hacienda Doka, we reviewed their 10-step process: growing, picking, processing, milling, roasting, packaging, shipping, grinding, brewing, and finally, a coffee drinker enjoying their cup of joe! I found the sustainability practices fascinating; the company had little to no waste and made every item purposeful. Specifically, older plants no longer produce sufficient coffee cherries and are reusing them for fuel. I found the first station in the factory, the first processing part, to be the most interesting. A huge tank is filled with water, and the cherries are poured into the water. Poor-quality cherries rose to the top, and good-quality ones sank. Based on density, the company can determine the quality of cherries efficiently and assess if the workers are picking the correct quality cherries or if potential diseases are harming the quality. Finally, the cherries that sank would then be redirected through a pipe into the next station, the peeling station. Depending on the size of the cherries would determine the quality of taste. The cherries would pass through a machine, which, depending on the size of the cherries, could remove the skin or pass them onto another machine set to remove the skin on smaller-sized cherries. Using this machinery makes the process very efficient for the cherries to ferment for anywhere from 30-36 hours. 

A piece of processing the farm can do differently is when they lay out their beans to dry in the sun. Using a large wooden looking trident is less efficient than the rest. A form of machinery to release and place the beans across a platform and a way to efficiently turn over the beans would speed up the process. 

Costa Rican coffee certainly lives up to expectations. The taste testing was wonderful. After seeing the production process first-hand, I appreciate a simple everyday item like coffee more than I did before.

I have worked at Dunkin since the fall of 2021 and found this experience to make a complete circle in my life. Now I understand the starting production of coffee to connect with me serving coffee to customers.