As I take a sip of my morning coffee, the rich flavors take me back to Coopedota, the coffee cooperative I visited in Costa Rica.
I arrived in Costa Rica on a hot Thursday in March, along with my travel companions from the Rainforest Alliance, Irene Trejos Vargas and Yessenia Soto. Coming from the frigid cold of Maine, I had not yet become accustomed to the intense heat of the Tarrazú, a region famous for producing some of the most elite coffee in the world. The Coopedota coffee cooperative is in the heart of Tarrazú.
Roberto Mata Naranjo, the general manager, and Miguel Badilla, one of the 800 coffee farmers in the cooperative, greeted us when we arrived. They served us some of their delicious coffee as Roberto recounted the history and mission of Coopedota. Founded in 1960, the cooperative strives to produce high quality coffee while upholding both social and environmental standards.
As of 2006, 91 of the coffee farmers belonging to Coopedota, including Miguel, have achieved Rainforest Alliance certification for their farms. For Miguel, coffee farming has been a part of his family for many generations. He himself has been coffee farming for more than 30 years and hopes that his children will continue the family tradition.
His farm is a short drive from Coopedota, so we jumped in his yellow truck and took a brief and bumpy ride.
Coffee is naturally a shade plant, and shade is especially critical for the coffee bushes in a region as hot as Tarrazú region. It is also an important criteria farms must meet to achieve Rainforest Alliance certification. Miguel has achieved this by planting various types of trees throughout his farm, including avocado trees that bring in extra revenue for Miguel’s family. The trees also provide different types of nutrients to the soil in order to combat soil exhaustion, while their shade allows the coffee bushes to stay healthy and reach peak production.
When in season, coffee bushes produce dozens of delicate white flowers. We arrived after the main harvesting season, which means most of the coffee bushes held few cherries and flowers. Miguel picked some of the remaining cherries and handed them to me to try. I bit down on the bright red cherry and popped the two coffee beans in my mouth. The beans were coated with a honey-like layer, with hints of hibiscus and rose.
The process behind extracting the coffee beans from the cherry is long and complex. Gabriela Ureña, a Coopedota employee, walked me through it. The beginning phase consists of pulping, washing, and sorting the beans according to quality, which is determined by the density of the bean. The beans are then dried. Coopedota sun-dries its highest quality beans, while the remaining beans are dried in greenhouses or by automatic burners that are fueled by dried coffee husks and extracted coffee pulp.
Before reaching the selection and packaging stages, the coffee beans must “de-stress” and mature. Gabriela showed me the large room where massive piles of dried green coffee beans rest in large wooden containers. The room was cool and calm – the perfect atmosphere for the beans to reach maturity.
Beyond the coffee packaging and shipment area is the coffee cupping room. As soon as I walked in, I quickly observed that coffee cupping (also known as coffee tasting) is an artform. Two men who’d just flown in from Japan were in the process of tasting and ranking 45 different coffees. This process requires the coffee to be smelled while it is both dry and wet, before it is actually ranked on its taste. To taste, the cupper noisily slurps a spoonful of temperature specific coffee onto the tongue for a minimum of three seconds before spitting it out. The cupper then proceeds to rank the coffee based on different elements such as aroma, cleanliness, body, and acidity.
I had the unique opportunity to cup alongside them. Trying to rank the aroma and identify the undertones of the coffee proved to be a challenge. Given that some professionals have been cupping for 14 years, I did not feel too bad for failing to identify chocolate undertones and floral aromas.
After my visit to Coopedota, I have a better understanding of the incredible amount of hard work and commitment that is poured into every cup of coffee. Now, whenever I drink coffee, I think of all the people I met during my journey and remember that it took dozens of dedicated individuals to make my cup of coffee possible.
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