Coffee & Chocolate plantation

Field Trip today; We went to a coffee & chocolate plantation today, very fun!

What we learned about coffee:

• Lighter coffee has more caffeine than darker coffee the darker the coffee, the more flavor but the less properties of the coffee bean. It is like overcooking your vegetables; you loose all of the good stuff.
  
• Coffee beans grow on trees! They start the plant in a greenhouse, once they get big enough they are put in pairs into plastic bags. They are put in pairs because the plants grow faster this way; it is as though they are competing with each other to grow. When they are on their own they don’t do that.
  
• The coffee tree lasts about 30 years and then needs to be dug up or it will ruin the soil.
• Coffee beans are all hand picked. Usually by the very young or the very old… anyone who can’t get a better job. So when you feeling guilty about wearing Nike because of kids in sweat shops, think about the man/child hours that went into your morning coffee!!
• The sun dries all the coffee beans naturally. This takes a year.
  
• Dark roast coffee often has sugar added to it to make it taste better because it has lost many of the properties of the original coffee bean.
• So drink light brew in the morning to get your shot of caffeine and help with your digestion. Drink dark roast in the evening for a flavorful after dinner drink.

We also got to see how chocolate is made from the coco bean. YUMMY… yes there was sampling involved.

Another sample we tasted was sugar cane. They showed us how sugar cane is harvested and how they use to get the sugar out using an old press. They cut up a few stalks of sugar cane for us to try. Earlier in the tour we were allowed to pick limes from a tree. They used this limejuice to drizzle over the sugar cane sticks. This was the best snack ever!! They also let us try the juice from the squeezed sugar cane; with a bit of lime juice mixed in this was also very yummy.

Lunch was back to the school and then after lunch as part of my language class Rosie and Nimsi taught Michelle and I how to make empanadas. Quizzing us on kitchen lingo all the while…

After school Doug and I headed to Santa Elena/town for groceries. We bought a machete in town so that Doug and his friend Sequoyah could cut down one of the banana trees in our back yard. Our bananas are now hung outside under the protection of the deck so that the sticky sap can drain from them. The sap is apparently worse than pine sap and once on your clothes will never come off. After a few days of hanging outside we will be able to bring them inside to ripen.

Skyped with Hailey tonight – Technology is so wonderful!! I miss my girl.