Cacau and Coffee Tour

In the afternoon we did the Don Juan Cacau and Coffee tour. This was a truly educational experience and we learned so much. I had no idea that Cacau beans (and bananas) are pollinated by mosquitoes! 🦟 Finally one redeeming quality for these suckers! It takes 4 years from a seed to a fruit producing tree, but then Cacau trees are producing beans year round for 30 years! Coffee trees are not as productive, they are harvested once a year. Coffee picking is mostly manual labor, since the elevation makes it hard to use machinery. A picker earns about $2 an hour, and it’s mostly done by Nicaraguan laborers. A reminder once more that it’s the roasters that make the most money in the coffee trade. Since Costa Rica is such a small country they cannot compete on price/quantity on the world stage (only 1% of the world’s coffee comes from Costa Rica), so they compete on quality. Per law, Costa Rica farmers are only allowed to harvest Arabica beans. ☕️ We got to create our own chocolate 🍫, and we all had lots of fun. Lesson: add tons of sugar and when you think your done, add a few more spoons.Read more