Have we mentioned we like hills and mountains, seems you can grow stuff on them as well as paddle and ride down them.
We visited Cafe Cristina in the hills above Paraiso and took a tour to see how our favourite morning drink took shape. Organically grown at a height of 1300metres, coffee produced here falls into the gourmet category.
The green bean, the basic raw material of your early morning cuppa
At 1300 metres the beans are just beginning to ripen in November
Shade trees are grown to prevent the precious beans from ripening too quickly, the slower the bean ripens the tastier the coffee. Coffee bushes take 3 years to mature and bear fruit, blooming in February through to April, the beans take around 8 months to ripen before they are harvested by hand from October through to February.
bananas, but not as we know them
It takes 6 kilos of fruit to produce a 1 kilo bag of coffee, this machine strips the juicy husks off the beans, ideally two per fruit for the best yields, milled the same day to preserve quality.
The outer fruit stripped, the pulp is eventually used as fertilizer
Sun dried beans Arabica are layed out and turned regularly
or dried in a more mechanical method
Bagged and tagged with the farm’s name for the record.
Roasted at around 220 degrees C and gaining that coffee aroma, the darker the bean the less caffine.
Weighed, ground and bagged.
http://www.cafecristina.com/