I woke up today with birds chirping outside my window and the sun beaming in. For breakfast, I enjoyed beans and eggs with my host family to start the day before meeting with the group. We went to the beautiful Doka Coffee Plantation for a tour and talk. At the plantation, we learned that Doka mainly grows and processes coffee beans for big companies like Tim Hortons and Starbucks. The tour started with seeing the trees that grow the fruit that coffee beans come from, then examining the processing mill of the coffee. We explored the sorting of the beans, peeling, drying, and finally the removing the outer shells.

Throughout the tour, I was surprised by how much the plantation and the government regulates the quality of the beans. The sorting of the beans puts the coffee beans in water, and the beans that sink are the highest quality. The beans that float, and beans that are smaller are sorted from the largest, densest beans. These smaller beans are sold more cheaply as the quality is much lower. The government also regulates the quality of coffee that Costa Rica produces. I learned about ICAFE, the Institute of the Coffee of Costa Rica. This institute controls the quality and price of the coffee beans along every step of the processing and growing. They study the beans and the different specifies of Arabica Coffee beans available. While there are two main types of coffee, Arabica and Robusta coffee, Costa Ricans are only permitted to commercially sell Arabica. Arabica coffee has better flavor and quality than Robusta. Even though Arabica produces less coffee per plant, the government regulates that only Arabica is sold to maintain the high quality of Costa Rican coffee.

The processing mill for coffee utilizes much technology and machinery to operate. The mill has a sorting machine, a peeling machine, a drying machine, and a machine to remove the outer shells. This machinery is used very well and efficiently. I especially like how Doka attempts to reuse as much of the waste produced in the process as they can. The older coffee plants, peels, and outer shells are all burned to heat the drying machine. When it is possible, the plant will use the natural sun instead of the machine to dry the beans. While the processing part of the coffee making process uses much technology, the growing and picking process ones not use as much. I believe that this can be improved since it is a very labor intensive process. The workers picking coffee are not paid much, only about 2 to 5 dollars per 20 pounds; therefore, they are traveling to other places like the United States to work instead. This process should use more technology in the planting and fertilizing of the trees. While picking may not be able to be fully mechanical, some technologies can be developed to mechanize certain steps in it.

After touring the plantation and complex process and regulation that coffee beans undergo, I do believe Costa Rican coffee has very high quality and flavor. It should be paid more for than other, cheaper beans since it undergoes extensive regulation and control. I also was allowed to try the different coffee roasts, and I enjoyed them. Costa Rica produces exceptionally fine coffee, and I know understand what differentiates them from other countries in the world that grow coffee.