Today we went on a walking tour of the Doka Coffee Plantation, and learned all about the process from picking the coffee cherries to roasting them into coffee beans as we know them. Our tour guide took us through the entire manufacturing plant, and explained all the steps in detail. The first step, picking the ripe cherries, was one of the most surprising. I remembered that most of the workers were migrants from Nicaragua, but I was in slight disbelief when I learned that they only earned 2 to 5 dollars per basket. From a business perspective, these low costs allow the plantation to stay in business and have a profit, however for the workers, this price seemed very unfair. At the very least it’s a benefit to have free housing. The second step is separating the good cherries from the bad ones. They are dumped into some sort of well of water, where the good ones sink and the bad beans float. The good beans are then pumped into the peeling stage directly. The bad beans are still used as well, and are for lesser quality coffee brands.

In the final stages of the process, machines peel the cherries into the beans and shells, which are then dried in the sun. I found an interesting connection to Costa Rica’s sustainability pledge, as the shelled beans are dried in the sun over a period of a few days instead of in the machine that could dry them in a few hours. With the machine drying, beans could be processed in less time and no one would be needed to tend to the beans outside. This would mean employing less workers, paying them less, and producing more beans, all of which would increase the profit of the plantation. However, they don’t use the machine as often since it uses up more energy and the tour guide mentioned using the renewable resource of the sun. To me this stood out because I don’t think this process would hold in America. We are always concerned with producing a product that we often forget about the environment or what may be the more natural path, but the Costa Ricans seem to have this idea integrated into their society much more.

Finally, after drying, the beans are then packaged and roasted and then shipped, a process we didn’t delve into too much detail with. Overall, I was surprised at how small of a scale the plantation was. There wasn’t tons of machines for each step, and the machines used were small. It gave me a new perspective on how efficient some industries can be without huge machinery. I was impressed by this fact. I also wondered why the plantation didn’t have a machine or some sort of automated method for turning the beans while drying. I would think that this would be more effective than having someone rake them over on the hour. Additionally, I also thought about some sort of conveyor belt system that transported the baskets of cherries to the draining station, which would minimize workers bringing their baskets up and down.

I was very impressed with the efficiency of the system and how it all worked together so intricately, despite its small scale and old equipment. I also noticed more sustainability with the plantation in terms of not wasting anything. The less quality cherries are still used, the shells are used as fertilizer, and the coffee plants are replaced with baby plants when they don’t have as high of a yield. As far as the quality of the coffee, I am unsure. I don’t drink coffee, so I had nothing to compare it too. However, I loved the smell and I did enjoy the taste, which makes me believe that Costa Rican coffee deserves all the praise that it receives.