Back in Boquete
Trip Start
Dec 03, 2007
1
18
29
Trip End
Mar 29, 2008
Boquete,
Panama
Sunday, January 20, 2008
This travel entry is going to take a different form as we would like to share some of the interesting facts that we learned about coffee after touring the environmentally-friendly Ruiz coffee finca (farm) in Boquete, Panama and also include some photos of our walk to the coffee farm.
I should explain that environmentally friendly refers to coffee plants that are grown in the shade of bigger coffee trees, avocado trees, castor trees (remember castor oil), etc. and ther area is not weeded. Even though growing this way does not produce as high a yield, the combination of shade trees and coffee plants provides several advantages: the use of chemicals is greatly reduced or eliminated, migratory and resident bird habitat is provided, the trees provide a natural food supply for birds and beneficial insects, the traditional, more flavorful, non-hybrid and shade loving coffee varieties, known as Typica, can be grown, the tree canopy provides mulch with nitrogen for the coffee plants, there is reduced erosion, and biodiversity is maximized
the beatiful coffee flower
.The conditions in Boquete are perfect for growing coffee - elevation between 1200 and 1700 metres, lots of water, rich volcanic soil and lots of shade trees.
Coffee is the 2nd largest commonity on the global market after oil. People in Finland, Sweden and Germany are the biggest coffee drinkers (6 cups a day).
Coffee trees can grow to 8 metres tall but is cut at around 2 metres so it will bush out and is easier for picking. It takes 5 years for a coffee tree to reach maturity. The yield from one tree is equal to 1 roasted pound of coffee.
The beautiful little white coffee flower smells like jasmine.
Panama has several ´spray or fumigating stations´ for all vehicles travelling through coffee growing areas.
Only 2 species of coffee tree are used to make coffee - Arabica from Ethiopia and Robusta from the Congo
Ruiz coffee farm nursery
. Robusta refers to the species of tree, not the taste!To consistently supply the highest quality coffee, only the ripe, red coffee cherries are picked one by one by the indigenous workers. In Costa Rica all cherries are stripped off the branches and in Brazil they are machine picked.
Coffee cherries are dropped into water and the ones that float (floaters) are discarded and mulched, used in lower quality coffee or used as the caffeine source in medicines or soft drinks.
Buy water processed decaffeinated coffee as the process involves boiling the caffeine out - better than using the roasted floaters.
Cafe Ruiz washes, dries and sorts the coffee beans by cultivation altitude, coffee variety (Typica or hybrid type), bean size and bean quality. Each batch of coffee is then labeled and stored.
For the perfect cup of coffee, 48 beans are required per cup of coffee.
these beans ¨the guessha¨ are the best
Coffee is tested exactly the same way that wine is.
Gourmet roasted coffees are the best quality. The best roasts for flavour are European roast,
followed by Latin, Italian and then French Roast. French roasted coffee has been roasted the longest so has less caffeine in it and a more bitter (burnt) taste.
Buy the coffee beans as you do not know what has been added to the ground coffee that you buy - cow blood, burnt corn, unripe coffee beans, chips of wood, etc.
The best coffee in the world is Geesha - $500 lb!
Second Cup coffee uses good coffee beans.
Nescafe coffee is known as ´ No es cafe´ in Panama!!!
We won´t bore you with more facts but we did learn a lot from our tour!
Tomorrow we are heading to Costa Rica for a few days in order to get our Visa to Panama topped up. Canadians can only stay in Panama for 1 month. We are in the same category as Columbians ... Americans can stay for 3 months.
