Coffee #2- Facts about Coffee

Today, I am going to open up by telling you about my experience with coffee, and then eventually turn my attention to some facts about the different types of coffee. If you were to ask me two years ago if I liked coffee, I would have looked at you with a face of disgust. As a little kid, I would probably visit my dad at his office around two or three times a week, and his secretary would make me a cup of coffee for some really weird reason that I still do not know to this day. Anyway, every time she would make me a cup of coffee I would without a doubt pour about ten oz. of sugar in it to try and cancel out the taste, but it never completely worked. Since then I would never try coffee, and thought that I would never try it again. What I did not know though was that I would be pulling all nights at college, and the only way that I could still function would be to drink coffee. I will definitely say that coffee is an acquired taste, and it took me about a month or so not to cringe after I took a sip. Now every time that I have coffee I know exactly how I like it. I like dark roasted beans with about three or four things of sugar and just a touch of milk.

I think that after being in Costa Rica for a month it will spoil my taste of coffee, so when I return to the states no coffee will be the same. When I was on my way down to Costa Rica on the plain, I had to try the last cup of "American" coffee so I could compare. I will admit that the coffee down here is usually a lot better then the coffee in the states. One thing that I learn about coffee last week while at Cafe Britt was that good coffee taste the same whether it is cold or warm, and that sometimes people will make coffee so hot so you cannot really taste the coffee. I can agree with that because every morning my host mom makes me a cup of coffee, and sometimes I will admit I am moving a little slower than normal and my coffee gets cold. Even though my coffee gets cold because I am moving slow, it still taste the same as it would if it was warm or hot. I don't really know what kind of coffee it is, but whatever it is it is good. I will find out before I leave Costa Rica and make sure that I take some of it home with me even though I have already sent four bags worth of coffee home.

Another thing that I have learned while I have been down here in Costa Rica is that there are all kinds of coffee whether it be organic, dark, light, or whatever other differences there are. Two main species of coffee beans are Arabica and Robusta. According to anothercoffee.co.uk robusta beans are grown in lower altitudes and have a high caffeine content, and also robusta beans account for about 30% of the worlds production in coffee beans. Robusta beans have a stronger flavour and have a woody aftertaste. Arabica beans according to anothercoffee.co.uk are grown in higher altitudes, 1000 to 2000 metres, but they consist of a lower caffeine content. Since Robusta beans account for 30% of the worlds production of coffee beans this means that Arabica beans account for about 70% of the worlds productions of coffee beans.

Moral of the story is don't always turn away from something because you do not like it at first. Give it another chance, and who knows you might like it.

Bananas #2- "Growing bananas socially sustainable, ethically, environmentally and sometimes even organically"

Since the demand for organic bananas have increased over 50% per year in the US and Europe in the past couple of years Costa Rica is having to figure out how to grow more and more organic bananas a year.  According to newfarm.org, "Black Sigatoka fungus disease, Mycosphaerella fijiensis, and the toppling nematode, Radopholus similis, are the biggest organic banana production problems."  Organic bananas are often grown in areas that have not had bananas grown in them before.  One way that a banana producer can fight against Black Sigatoka is by cutting away dying leaves, covering the racemes with bags to speed growth and prevent damage from birds, keeping the topsoil clean, and removing the flowers from the bunches.  

A program known as the Rainforest Alliance Better Banana Program is a movement to help conventionally grow bananas for environmental and social sustainability.  The certification process for the RABBP is an intense process that involves practices that protect water quality, worker health and safety, and wildlife habitat.  There are nine principles that the RABBP take into consideration when deciding whether or not the farms are certified or not, and they are "ecosystem conservation, wildlife conservation, fair treatment and good conditions for workers, good community relations, strictly managed use of agrichemicals, integrated management of waste, conservation of water resources, soil conservation, and environmental planning and monitoring" according to socialfunds.com.  Also, according to socialfunds.com these companies have a win-win-win model: "a win for the environment, a win for workers, and a win for corporations."  One large corporation that is partnered with RABBP is Chiquita.   

The RABBP are mostly used by corporate banana such as Chiquita.  The US is two thirds of Chiquita's bananas sold, which all of the plantations that they come from are certified under the RABBP.  This means that all 127 of Chiquita's farms in Latin America are certified under the nine principles of RABBP.     

   

Personal #2-Monteverde Weekend

Well today is the first day back at the university since last Friday, and I am exhausted. The past weekend we took our first trip of the month and visited Arenal volcano, Baldi hot springs, and Monteverde. It took us about four hours to get to our hotel Friday night. While on the bus all of us slept, listened to music, and played Mafia. Mafia is a card game where you have the same number of cards as people playing, and you have an ace, king, queen, and the rest of the cards are numbered cards. The ace is the Mafia, the king is the cop, the queen is the doctor, and the rest of the cards are citizens. During the game, everyone goes to sleep and then the Mafia wakes up and kills someone, then the cop wakes up after the Mafia goes back to sleep and chooses someone that he or she thinks is the Mafia, and then the queen gets up after the cop went back to sleep and tries to guess who got killed so he or she can save that person. After all of this, everyone wakes and and tries to figure out who the Mafia, and convince each other who it is. I think that we probably played that game for a good two hours of so on the bus ride.

When we got to the hotel we got our room assignments, and then changed to go to the hot springs and enjoy the rest of the night there. The hot springs was probably one of the favorite things that we have done so far. It was located at the base of the Arenal volcano, so the water was naturally heated by the heat from the volcano. There were I believe six or seven different levels, and the further you went up the hotter the water got. The hottest that the water got was 152 degrees. You wanna talk about hot. It took me a while to build up to get into the 152 degree hot spring. The worst part about that one was actually getting your legs all the way in. After you had your waist under it was not that bad; as long as you didn´t move so much. It helped me to rub my legs to get some of the pain and heat off of them. We were probably in the hot springs for a good two or so hours, and I am pretty sure everyone loved it. After being in the springs for that long we had dinner there. The dinner was probably the best I have had yet. I don´t know if it was because I was tired from the springs or what, but it was amazing. The fish was the best part about it. After that, we all went back to the hotel where some of us went to sleep, and the rest of everyone else hung out in one of the rooms watching TV and playing games.

The next day we had to wake up at 6:45, so that we could make it to breakfast by 7:00 and leave by 8:00. The first site that we went to was the ICE hydro-powered water plant. It was pretty interesting to see how one of those worked. It was amazing that we were able to just drive right up to the gate, and get into the plant that easily because I know back in the states you would not even begin to get close to do that. We also went to the damn that supplies the water for the plant, which was about three miles away I would guess. It was amazing to see that because the night before there was three feet of water that was overflowing the dam. I asked the engineer how long it took to fill up the lake behind the dam, and he told us that it only took two days. That just made me realize exactly how much water they get down here because that was a very large lake.

After the power plant, we went back into town and went horse back riding to La Fortuna waterfalls. It took us about half an hour or so to ride up to the enterance of the waterfalls, but the ride there was awesome. My horse took awhile to break in, but after I broke him in he began to run and gallup a lot more. Once we were actually at the waterfall enterance we then had to hike down (supposedly) ten flights worth of stairs. We were at the waterfall for about twenty or thirty minutes until we had to hike back up the stairs; where I found out that I really needed to get back into shape. We then proceeded to go back to the hotel and pack our bags to head out to Monteverde.

While at Monteverde, we went zip lining through the canapies, went on a night and morning walk through the rain forest, played cards games all through the night, and had PIZZA. The zip lining was amazing. I have gone zip lining before in Jamaica and that was nothing compared to this. The views from the zip line was unforgettable. There were 14 different lines that we did, and there were also two or three walking bridges which was very interesting to try and get across because once there were about three or four of us on it we would start jumping on the bridge or swinging it. Two lines that we did were the free fall line and the George of the Jungle swing. The George of the Jungle swing was literally a huge swing where we jumped off a plattform. The plattform was about three stories high, and for some reason I decided to go off backwards. The feeling of free fall is a very scary thing esp when you are not looking down at the ground; not knowing when the swing is going to finally catch you and take you flying through the air. After the zip lining we went back to the lodge where we were staying and then went to dinner. Oh dinner, it was an amazing thing because by this time I had not really had any "American" food, and we had pizza for dinner. Even though pizza is really Italian food, I have it back in the states so. At dinner I sat with Steve, Paul, Stephanie, and Morell. It was probably the funniest dinner I have had here yet, and I dont know why because everything we were laughing at really wasn't that funny. I think we were through seven or so pizzas all together, and at dinner I made a new best friend. This new friend was a mixed dog that looked like he had a little of yellow lab and I dont really know what else. We then returned to the lodge where we went on the night walk; which was pretty cool because we got to see bats and all kinds of other little bugs even though it was raining really really hard. For the rest of the night we just played Mafia and Sniper. I explained what Mafia was earlier, but Sniper is another card game. The point of the game is for the sniper to wink at everyone in the game without getting caught. The way that the sniper is choosen is by having one or two Aces in the cards, and whoever chooses those are the snipers. It is alot harder then it sounds because you will be sitting in a circle while everything is looking at you or someone else.

We started off the next day by waking up at 5:45 to go on our morning hike at 6:00. While on the hike we saw hummingbirds but most importantly we saw the female and male Quetzal. The female Quetzal is seen more frequently then the male, but that particular morning we saw two females and a couple of males. The female is a darker bird that is not as pretty as the male, but the male is a beautiful bird that can around three feet long with its tail. The male is a mixture of green, white, red, and a blueish color. After the morning hike, we had breakfast at the lodge and then headed back to San Jose.

Overall, I would say that the weekend was a great weekend, and I feel like everyone had a great time and got to know each other even better. I really can't complain about one thing while on the trip, but I can say that I just think that things are going to get better.

Ecotourism

Costa Rica was the birthplace for Ecotourism. There are at least six different types of environments in Costa Rica: cloud forest, tropical rain forest, dry tropical forest, montane oak forest, mountainous paramo, and mangrove and other wetlands. Between all of these environments tourist are able to find a varied of activities to do while visiting Costa Rica.

Some will argue that the first place to start off your visit to Costa Rica is with one of the country's well-trained natural history guides; that is if you are going to be traveling through of the the many rain forests or national parks. All of these guides are experts at identifying birds, frogs, monkeys, bats, snakes, and other wildlife that will be surrounding you during your tour. As once quote by naturalist Amos Bien, "Being in a rainforest without a guide is like being in a library without knowing how to read." Not only will the guides help you through the jungle and also by pointing species out, but they can also help you by getting in contact with travel agencies. Even though Costa Rica is filled with beautiful landscapes, there are several other things to do while traveling in Costa Rica. Some of these activities include: canopy zip lines, golfing, volcano visits, enjoying the beautiful beachs, kayaking, white water rafting, and several other entertaining activities.  Finally, the benefits and costs of Ecotourism to the economy are as followed.  The benefits of it is that it provides benefits to industries, transfer of income, and diversifaction.  The costs to the economy are leakage, exploitation of local work force, and instability.  

Bananas

Here in Costa Rica bananas make up 7% of exports, and according to dictionary.com a banana is defined as "A tropical plant of the genus Musa, certain species of which are cultiveated for their nutritious fruit." Also, according to ro.unctad.org "The banana is not a tree but a high herb that con attain up to 15 metres of height, and grow in tropical regions where the aberage temperature is 80 degrees F and the yearly rainfall is 78-98 inches." Production of a banana is a long and hard process because the time it takes between planting a banana plant and then harvesting it could last anywhere from 9 to 12 months.
Banana production system can differ between the different types of the producing areas. Plantations are mostly found in Latin America, and they not only take time and hard work to run but also huge investments in infrastructure and technology. Banana growing is very labour intensive because of several important factors in growing the banana. A banana plant requires intensive and individual care to obtain the required quality fruit; some individual cares are claering away of the jungle growth, propping to counter bending from the weight of the growing fruit, and probably the most important is irrigation during the dry season. After this long and intensive process of caring for the banana the harvesting season comes.
Bananas are havested when they are green and hard. In order to harvest the bananas there are two types of workers that are required to do this, and they are the ¨cutter¨ and the ¨backer¨. The cutter cuts down the plant; while the backer waits for the cut stem to land on a cushion on his shoulder. After the cutter and backer have done their job the bananas are then transported to packing shad where the bananas are removed by hand and are then washed. The final stage for processing them is that the bananas then go through quality control before they are packaged.

Fair Trade Coffee in Costa Rica

"Fair Trade coffee is a socially and environmentally responsible way to conduct trade between developed and developing countries", quoted by GlobalExchange.org. An advantage to this Fair Trade is that we now have the power to revolutionize the global economy, and demonstrate that the world can evenutally work together to provide everyone his or her need. As of November 14, 2007 coffee in Costa Rica accounted for 11% of exprt revenue and employed 5% of the nations labor force. Costa Rica Coffee also accounts for 2.6% of the worlds production of coffee. In Costa Rica there are 72,942 coffee growers. Costa Rica claims that as a country they are focused on the small farmers. A small farmer would grow his or her coffee on less then 5 hectares, which makes up around 44% of the total coffee produced. Medium size farmers will probably own up to as much as 20 hectares of land which will account for approximately 21% of the nations coffee. While the larger coffee produces, which is only 2% of the farmers, have more then 20 hectares and will produce 35% of the nations coffee.

Now in Costa Rica the COOCAFE is the only Fair Trade coffee cooperatives. They make up 3500 small coffee producers, and they are located in nine independent cooperatives through out the country. Their mission is ,"To promote social and economic development and environmentally sustainable coffee production that meets the quality demands of our customers and serves the needs of our cooperatives and their member." COOCAFE was founded in 1988, and since then it has grown and now has established the International organization known as the FairTrade Labelling Organization, FLO. FLO`s main desire is to work with third world producers and give them better opportunities, treatment, and guarantees quality products for the consumer. FLO consists of 416 different licensed importers, industries, supermarkets and stores, and more than 800,000 producers. FLO works with sells in Europe, North America, and Japan. The fair trade associated with COOCAFE and FLO is comprised of three different groups of participants. First is the producers, second is the licensees, and thirdly is the national iinitiatives and campaigns. In conclusion the COOCAFE and FLO are commited to giving better opportunities that benefit producers around the world.

Daisy Rodriguez- Del Cafe...Tal

Today, May 21, 2008, we traveled to Daisy Rodriguez´s coffee plantation to learn how a small owned plantation is run, and what it takes to also maintain the planation. She started her interest in owning her own coffee plantation ten years ago, and since then has been both an organic and traditional coffee producer. She changed from being an organic coffee producer three years ago because she went from producing 800 baskets to 30 baskets a year. Now she has the number one coffee in Costa Rica, and they would have it that they are the best in the world. The plantation is located in the Alajuela province, where 1.2 million of the population lives. Daisy gave us some background information about coffee, and said that about 30 years ago a coffee producer would receive 30% of the value. Daisy has her own brand which is Del Cafe...Tal. She sells to Japan, Europe, and the United States. Her company is vertically intergated, doing all of the planting, picking, drying, shipping, selling, and etc. She also employees six people year around, and during the picking season she employees 70 people. The process after the coffee bean has been picked takes 7-8 days. She now produces around 80,000 pounds of coffee a year, and since she just receive the award of having the number one coffee in Costa Rica she can sell 100 pounds for 1500 dollars.

Personal Blog

So today is my thrid day here in Costa Rica and so far so good. I really cant complain about anything that has happened yet except for maybe the lack of sleep, but then again it has been fun going out with everyone and getting to know them. Last night a group of us went to the Monday night bar, and I ended up having a little to much for having to get up at 6:15 this morning. It was definatetly different then any bar that I have been to in the states; which was a good thing. There was actual live music that was enjoyable, people actually dancing, and the people were friendly (except one guy that didn't like me trying to push through to get to my friend, but hey you cant be friends with everyone) After awhile of hanging out with everyone my host brother ended up showing up to the bar, and him and I decided it would be smart to buy drinks back and forth (which was the downfall of the night for me).
Yesterday, we went to Cinde, which is a private non-profitable organization that helps bring in new businesses to Costa Rica. That is one thing that I am kinda confused about, and that is that during the presentation the lady said that Costa Rica wanted to be an export powered economy, but if you are wanting to bring in companies from outside like she also sad wouldn't that just defeat the purpose of wanting to be an export powered economy?? During the presentation we heard about how Costa Rica got rid of their military again.....I guess this is one thing that they are very proud of. Also during the presentation we learned something that I thought was very interesting and that is that coffee only makes up for 3% of Costa Ricas export compared to when it use to be 53% of their exports back in the 1980's. Another thing that I found amazing was that 98.3% of Costa Ricans have health-care, and that it is the 2nd most globalized country in Latin America.
Tomorrow we are going to go visit a coffee plantation, and I am interested to see what it is like. I dont know what to except really. I dont know if we are going to be getting down and working a little or if we are just going to be touring the plantation and seeing how it is run. Tonight, I think that I am just going to go home and finish my readings for the classes tomorrow, and then have dinner and then just get back in bed and lay there all night and watch TV and go to sleep.
So far everything has gone well, but I did meet some people that got held a gun point last night. So, I really guess I do need to pay attention to my surroundings and becareful. Also, I talked to Allison today and she is really enjoying Lux and seems to be doing well. It will be good seeing her when we get back and she comes down for the 4th of July.

First Day in Costa Rica

Yesterday started by getting up around 6:30, to where I found a table full of fruit, Gayo Pintos (spelling???), bread, juices, and coffee.  My housemate Peter and I sat at the table discussing how much better we felt about understanding our house mom that morning than we did the night before, the movies that were on the night before, and what we thought we would be doing that day.  After breakfast, we got ready to walk to school and meet the rest of the group where we found out that we had to walk three girls to school.  One being from Colorado, and the other two being from Montana.  Arriving at the school we saw the rest of our group, and I starting asking people how their night was and if their host family spoke any english.  After that we all got our picture taken and finally departed for the tour of the city.  

During the tour we saw the presidents house, which was a lot different then the White House.  The first difference that I noticed was that the house was just like every other house in the neighborhood, and the second thing that I noticed was that there was really no security besides a couple of cameras and a security guard watching them......well I am going to have to finish this later because I have to go to class.