Costa Rica is famous for its coffee (and who doesn’t love a little pick me up?), so of course we had to do a coffee tour when mom and dad were in town. There is an excellent organic coffee producer in the Atenas area called El Toledo so we signed up for a tour and lunch. We did this back in December and I had meant to write about it then, but somehow life got in the way.  Anyways, it was a pretty cool experience.

El Toledo is a family run coffee farm and our tour was given by Gabriel who works together with family on the farm. He first spoke with us a bit about organic farming and how important it is to keep in mind that all living things are interconnected and that using chemicals or depending on only one product is harmful for the environment and for the future success of the farm and therefore the family’s livelihood.
Their family seems to be very progressive and throughout the years, they have made adjustments and major changes to the way they farm their land. From using chemicals to going organic and from only growing coffee to diversifying their crops.

We first had fun with a taste test of the different coffee roasts which they made using the traditional Costa Rican chorreador (hot water poured over the grounds which then drips into the cup below) method. We blind tasted the light, medium and dark roast and tried to guess which was which. It seemed that almost all of us preferred the dark roast, while he explained that the light and medium roasts offer much more complexities in flavor whereas the dark is easier to produce as it is less complex. We also learned how many things affect the flavor when making coffee such as the temperature of the water, if the grounds are fine or more course, the amount of water versus coffee grounds, and how long the coffee brews.

Gabriel’s father was roasting beans in their retro roaster which is a pretty cool machine! It was quite a process and he seemed to just know what the the right temperature should be and when the beans were ready to be taken out of the roaster and cooled depending on which roast he was going for.

We then took a walk through the farm. We were lucky to do the tour just as they were starting to harvest the beans so the coffee plants were ready to be picked, which is all done by hand. Gabriel also pointed out many other plants and trees of interest on the farm and we all learned a ton about farming in Costa Rica.

After our little walk through the farm, we ended up back at the farmhouse for a yummy typical casado lunch and some time to relax…or play and be crazy as was the case for Oscar and Alice.