Tales by Thom

When I was in Costa Rica I went to Monte-Verde, which means (Green-Mountain). My family and I went on a tour called, “The Night Hike“, I had lots of fun! First the tour guide walked around and showed us walking-sticks and caterpillars and also lots of beetles! We got to see a sloth but it was very hard to see because it was in a tree and it was very dark. The sloth looked like a small yeti! Oh, I forgot to tell you that we did not take pictures because it was very dark and rainy. There actually were no mosquitoes, that was good even though I don’t get bit for some reason! After the sloth we went out behind the gates looking for a snake and we saw a green one hanging on the tree, It was cool because on television I’ve seen shows that have green snakes! I was kind of scared but not that much.

The second tour was called the ” Don Juan, Coffee Tour“, now this one is a long one! Of course the tour was in the rain but not that hard of a rain! I’ll walk you through to process! First we went to a green-house with plants and most of all a coffee plant! It takes about 1 to 2 years to grow them! Next we went to a room and the tour guide showed us how they carried buckets and then they picked the red berries off the trees! The workers pick about 15 buckets of berries a day! The baskets are pretty big. That’s hard work! Then we went to another room where we looked on the ground and there were all of these non – peeled berries! Well you had to let the berries sit in the sun of course! So we looked and peeled some!

Next we went to to a room with a sorting machine and we watched the machine sort them! It works by shaking the bottom! The really light berries shoot out and the heavy berries go in one bag and the medium go in another and the light ones go in another! Then we went over to a table with a screen built into it and we shook the berries and the dirt from the berries go on the ground. Then we crushed the berries in a large bowl. Next we went into a big room where there was a coffee berry roaster and the machine roasted the berries for 21 – 22 minutes! If you do it longer they will start on fire! There was a chart with the top 10 coffee consuming countries!

#1 – Finland
#2 – Norway
#3 – Iceland
#4 – Denmark
#5 – Holland
#6 – Sweden
#7 – Switzerland
#8 – Belgium
#9 – Canada
#10 – Bosnia

And then US is is #25

Weird Isn’t it?
So ya, then we went to a outside room and me and Chase grind-ed sugar canes in a grinding machine! We turned the handles on each side and it squashed the sugar cane, it was very hard! Then we finally got on a wheel barrel and the oxen carried us to the front! That was the end of the coffee tour I learned a lot and I also like coffee now!