Taste description of Costa Rican Coffee Plantation Environment

Taste description of Costa Rican Coffee Plantation Environment

The carefully selected coffee seeds were first planted in flowerpots to be taken good care of, and the seeds slowly germinated into seedlings. After several weeks, the seedlings grow butterfly-shaped leaves. But these are not real coffee leaves, and it takes two to three weeks for real leaves to grow out of the protective leaves, and then the seedlings need to be replanted in the field, while it takes three years for the seedlings to grow into big trees. Coffee trees usually have a life span of hundreds of years, but in order to ensure the yield and quality of coffee, the trees used to pick coffee fruits are less than 25 years old.

A coffee tree that bears fruit

Coffee fruits are harvested from October to February and March of the following year, and only those fruits that have turned red can be picked for coffee production. Peel off the skin of the coffee fruit, the flesh is translucent white, put into the mouth can taste a touch of sweetness, this is because it contains sugar.

Cajuela for picking coffee beans

In Costa Rica, coffee fruit pickers use a basket that can be tied around the waist as a container for fruit, which is locally known as Cajuela. A basket full of coffee fruit weighs 25 pounds, and Cajuela is the only official unit of coffee fruit picked in Costa Rica. The picker earns only $2 for picking a basket of fruits, so it is very hard. The workers currently working in the coffee garden are from neighboring Nicaragua. Every picking season, the plantation employs 400 workers to pick, and a good worker can pick 20 baskets a day, but after subsequent shelling, meat and sugar removal procedures, each basket produces only about 7 pounds of coffee beans.