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Fancy Imported Meats In the corner grocery, if you want to get away from the doldrums of fresh chicken, free-range beef, pork, some nice processed cold cuts |
Santa Maria de Dota from Above Next morning we headed out to the farms around Dota that are milled by Biocafe, including Finca Tono. The town is at 1400 meters, so all the surrounding hills feature some of the highest grown coffees, 1700 meters on up to 1900, even a few touching 2000 meters. |
First Half of Biocafe: Christian Christian helps with the mill and owns a farm called Santa Rosa in tarrazu. |
Second Half of Biocafe: Kenneth Kenneth owns a part of Finca Tono and Finca Cedral, and works a lot at the mill. His house is basically right at the mill, 30 meters away. |
Volunteers Along the road, volunteer coffee seedlings form a spontaneous nursery. as a guy who has his own nursery and struggles to get germination, this is and affront to my sensibilities! |
View from Finca Cedral Finca Cedral is a 6 year old farm, even higher than Tono, ranging from 1700 to 1750 meters. |
Santa Rosa de Leon Cortez There are several counties that form Tarrazu and one you hear of less than Dota and San Marcos de Tarrazu is Leon Cortez. We stopped at a farm there that had not yet been picked and the amount of cherry on these red and yellow catuai trees was ridiculous. |
Red Catuai, Leon Cortez Costa Rica Abundant Cherry ... |
Red Catuai The cherry was very ripe, and tasting the sweetness of this fruit was amazing. They say that in this area they have about a 2 week window to pick ripe cherry before it turns overripe. The window was closing on this farm, but the ripest cherry I tasted was the sweetest. |
Leon Cortez de Tarrazu A view of the adjacent hills from the farm. |
Woops - drying on the tree. In some areas that have highly defined seasons, you can dry coffee on the tree. In foggy and rainy Dota, you can't. |
Yellow Catuai at Leon Cortez Have we seen enough pictures of coffee cherry yet??? Yellow Catuai at Leon Cortez |
Views from Santa Rosa Altos We went up to Christian's farm which has some nice views across the valley. |
Christian Christian on the farm. |
Comida Rustico de tarrazu A must eat place is La Vaca Flaca, the skinny cow... |
Typical coffee car In the parking lot, coffee farmer dudes with their custom wheels. You see this alot in Tarrazu, where cherry is delivered in small trucks to the coops; specialized backs that can dump coffee cherry. |
And there's the cow... Ouit front, a plaster cow in a little stable greets you. |
Carved Tables Just so you don't forget where you are eating... |
Biocafe Mill bragadoccio If he existed, maybe he would. Then again, you don't cross the "federacion" like that.... |
Bean Man I know I have taken this same picture before, in Guatemala and such, but I just love that little Penagos guy. |
Quien es mas macho? Back in San Marcos de Tarrazu town, a super nifty little tonka toy of a tow truck. |
La Candelilla Estate I head out with Francisco Mena of Delicafe to meet one of the seminal farms in the Micro Mill movement: La Candelilla. At their nursery, Typica. |
La Candelilla Vivero Geisha Cultivar at La Candelilla. (I keep trying to convonce everyone it is Gesha, named after the locale in Ethiopia it originates, but everyone spells it like the Japanese way...) |
Caturra Cultivar. I like Caturra ... it just depends on the altitude and climate it grows at. Hell, I think Catuai at with the right altitude and shade can be great too. |
Starbucks Soccer-Football When am I going to get my own starbucks ball? |
Ricardo of la Candelilla Ricardo is the main man at La Candelilla, and shows us his well-organized warehouse with each micro lot carefully separated. |
Beneficio Don Mayo we press on, even though it is now dark, to Beneficio Don Mayo, with perhaps my favorite logo ever. That's the traditional coffee pickers hat, on this sorta weak-chinned, bean headed man. I am crazy about this logo... I hope they never change it. |
Beneficio Humido Don Mayo wet mill, super clean, everything tiled, lovely. the main man, Hector, has a lot to be proud of here... |
Early morning view The view of San Pablo de Tarrazu in the early AM |
Next Am, waking up in Tarrazu A great way to wake up. You can find your way to San Jose, I'll stay in Tarrazu. |
Emilio's Montes de Oro Mill We stayed at the mill and had a quick look around in the morning. This is an interesting CR made horizontal demucilager. |
Raised Beds, Montes de Oro The raised beds are in great shape at Montes de Oro mill and farm. |
Emilio and his Micro Mill Emilio and his costa-rica made micro mill, impeccably clean |
Francisco and Emilio Next to the furnace for the mechanical dryer, Francisco Mena and Emilio |