It’s actually a coffee, chocolate and sugar tour, get it? Well, I laughed, at any rate. That aside, with all the wandering around nature reserves and zip-lining, it was nice to take a chill afternoon and work on getting a pleasant sugar/caffeine buzz.
The tour was mostly what you might expect. You wander around a plantation with a guide who explains the process of making coffee, chocolate, and sugar. The view from the coffee fields was pretty impressive, I must say:
Taken by Elani
Then the guide shows you the machines that are used and explains the processes. I’m not going to go into that, since if you actually want to know, I’m sure Wikipedia can do a better job than I can. Of course, they’re generous with the samples throughout the tour. It was the first time since our trip to Bali that me and Elani got eat raw cacao, a favorite of both of ours. The bean themselves are quite bitter and not great to eat at this stage, but they are surrounded by a sweet pulp that tastes more like lychee then chocolate. It’s very good, and a rare treat (for us at any rate).
Taken by Elani
Taken by Elani
My favorite section was probably the sugar. We got to taste raw sugar cane, which was very tasty, sweet with a taste sort of like how fresh cut grass smells. They gave out samples of the Costa Rican version of moonshine – made from sugar cane juice. It was…um…bracing. They showed us the pressing machine, both the new high-tech water wheel type, and the old school oxen powered one. Then they had us try mixings the boiled-down syrup into sugar. To do that, you stir the hot syrup with a wooden paddle until it cools and crystallizes. The warm sugar was my favorite sample, it basically tasted like molasses, but fresher and sweater. Awesome!
Taken by Elani
Finally they gave us a cup of coffee and for some reason a taco filled with a root vegetable called aracha – which was very good, Elani’s favorite actually. Then they drop you off in the gift shop where they have more coffee samples. At the end of the tour we were thoroughly satisfied, if a little over caffeinated.