Today, we toured Hacienda Doka, a coffee producer and roaster in the central tectonic depression of Costa Rica. On our tour, we looked at the overall process of picking, processing, and roasting coffee. First, café arábica coffee ‘cherries’ are hand-picked and measured in cajuelas (each of which measure 28 pounds of cherries) and fanegas (each of which measures 20 cajuelas). Then, the cherries are sorted by quality using water. The higher-quality coffee cherries are more dense and sink, while the lower-quality cherries float and are processed separately. Once separated, the cherries are sorted by size and peeled in machines called chancadores.  They are then placed in fermentation tanks, which changes the smell and appearance of the beans. To dry, the coffee beans are placed either on sun drying patios or in mechanical dryers, depending on the humidity and weather (an image of the mechanical dryer is shown to the right). After aging in their parchment skin for 3—4 months, the beans are separated from their parchment skin and roasted at 400 degrees.

After our tour, we watched a presentation about the exportation process and logistics of delivering coffee. The success of coffee exports and sales relies on several elements. For example, the coffee producers’ profit directly relies on the price of coffee, which relies on the New York Stock Exchange. Similarly, amounts of coffee produced by Brazil and other countries in the coffee industry can reduce demand and reduce prices if enough coffee is produced. In addition, reduced value of US dollars in comparison to Costa Rican colones reduces the final amount of revenue and profit made by coffee exporters, as most business is completed in terms of US dollars. The production rate also varies, especially with environmental changes. This is shown in climate change, as coffee plants require a certain amount of rain and a certain range of temperatures to reach their growing potential. However, coffee producers in Costa Rica can counteract the impact of decreased production by increasing prices; Costa Rica is well-known for its quality coffee, so Costa Rican coffee producers can increase prices and charge more for premium coffee.

While I had few expectations regarding the process of coffee growth and production, I was still surprised by the constant implementation of sustainability and efficiency. Although most steps of the coffee processing involved separation and reducing the amount of coffee beans to ensure higher quality, most of the resulting waste is reused later in the process. For example, we learned that old coffee plants are burned as fuel in the mechanical dryers. In addition, the floating coffee cherries (the lower-quality cherries) are not thrown away, but rather used to make cheaper coffee. Furthermore, the peeled red cherry skins are composted and the old parchment skins are used as fuel (an image of coffee beans with their parchment skin is shown to the right). The drying process also relies primarily on sun drying, thus reducing the use of energy and fuel (unless weather conditions are unideal for drying). I was also surprised by the role of Costa Rica in the coffee industry. While Costa Rica has one of the highest prices for coffee (about $206.6 per 100 pounds), it doesn’t have the highest production rate. Brazil has the highest production rate of coffee, followed by Colombia (and a few other countries) before Costa Rica. Before today’s tour, I had assumed that the highest production would indicate a larger national industry and provide more economies of scale, thus increasing quality of coffee and increasing coffee prices. As a result, I found it surprising that Costa Rica, with its high coffee prices, was not in the top three coffee producers (by weight).

Costa Rica’s high quality in coffee is likely a result of their methods and uses of technology. At Doka, coffee beans are primarily transported between machines through tubes (unless the beans are coming from the fields or sun drying patios, in which case they are transported in wheelbarrows). This method reduces the time needed between processing steps, thus making the overall process more time-efficient. Doka also displays a heavy reliance on nature; for instance, coffee beans are sun-dried whenever possible and the success of cherry production directly relies on amounts of rain. In addition, processing coffee uses a lot of manual labor. In addition to hand-picking every coffee cherry and manually spreading out beans to dry (as shown in the image to the right), some stages required the beans to be transported in wheelbarrows. These methods provide both risks and benefits for Costa Rica’s overall coffee industry. While a reliance on nature worsens the impact of changes in weather and climate change, it contributes to the sustainability of coffee producers because it reduces the use of energy and stored natural resources. Similarly, the use of manual labor has risks in that it is time-consuming, can be more expensive, and increases the possibility of human error. However, these steps serve as constant quality checks, ensuring that the coffee produced in Costa Rican plantations maintains its reputation for high quality. Based on these impacts, I believe that Doka’s current method is most fitting if coffee quality has the highest priority. However, priorities in speed and profit would call for further introduction of machines in the picking and processing methods.