Monday 5 November 2012

coffee


 
 
When you climb up to the coffee plantation above the house, this is the view you have looking down into the Central Valley...the mountains in the distance being some forty kilometres away.
 
And this is the view in the other direction, across the gravel road to the mountain behind, where the spring which serves us with water is situated. Behind it, just three kilometres away, is the town....but you would think yourself miles from anywhere.



 
 
 
On these slopes, the coffee was rooted up years ago, when the boom of the seventies had subsided, but you can still see the terraces, now grazed by the brahma cattle.
 
 
While these are the slopes still down to coffee...the white dots are pickers.
 















 







And it's not a simple job...the coffee plant is not an amenable beast.
It puts forth a couple of early ripening berries on each wand, which have to be removed for the rest to ripen.

So pickers have to work the whole cafetal for very little in terms of financial reward...as the pickings are few.
We try to do this ourselves with Danilo, but Don Antonio will always help out too.





This is the coffee plant ready to harvest....if we want the best prices we want our pickers to take only the red fruit, but the pickers need to fill the cajeula...the official measuring unit, a square metal box...to make it worthwhile coming out, so we compromise and go to a firm which will accept yellowish fruit as well....but, as their notice firmly states...no fruit picked off the ground and no twigs!


The photographs show sunshine, but such are the conditions in our area...now marginal for coffee... that the main haul of the picking is done in driving rain...no joke wearing one stout bin bag as a kilt, another one slit to make a hood and cloak, filling the picking baskets tied round the waist,  sliding down the muddy terraces to tip them into the sacks and, finally, bringing them down to the lower road to be weighed and paid out.

The coffee just about washes its face in money terms....pickers will be more difficult to get in the future....we are wondering whether to put the whole area down to pasture...whether to grow something else....or whether to keep on the coffee as a hobby.

This year's weather looks kindlier than previous years....we shall wait and see what the accounts tell us.
 

30 comments:

  1. I was completely unaware of the thrawn-ness of this plant!
    I'm really a tea-drinker. I think I'd fair poorly in Costa Rica.
    In some ways your post reminds me of the tomato and strawberry growers in the Clyde Valley 2 miles further down from here. They are finding it difficult to recruit pickers - nobody wants the back-breaking seasonal work now.
    I used to howk for tatties during the summers when wee. Hard work. Terrible exhausting. And not something I'd want to do every again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Modern varieties...such as grown now in Brazil... are much more amenable...they are machine picked, like grapes!
      Mine are old Arabica varieties...some have wands right over your head...but they make a superb coffee.

      A bit higher up and we could go in for tea....but it would mean living permanently in the clouds!

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  2. What absolutely beautiful surroundings you live in.

    Did you mention somewhere that a hut was being built? Would it house people? You could keep the coffee and get people like myself to come and pick, who would be delighted to work in return for accomodation and food/somewhere to cook in such a lovely place. Hint, hint.

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    Replies
    1. No need to hint....but the rates of pay wouldn't buy a pair of wings for Icarus, let alone an airfare!

      It would make a wonderful blogger gathering, though, wouldn't it!

      Delete
  3. Pick your own coffee eh? Why are fallen beans not accepted? (No pre-ground coffee? *groan*)

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    Replies
    1. None of your Nastcafe here, if you please....
      We'd never get over the three hectares on our own....what with the rain knocking ripe berries to the ground and what not....

      The firms don't want berries which are decomposing...as they do rapidly once hitting the wet warm earth.
      Quite part from weighing and paying for muck.

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  4. Keep the Arabica! Please! Local coffee is Java, which I do not care for. I like the Costa Rica Fair Trade coffee(which, I think, is a blend) and Columbia Highlands is also to my taste.

    Any field work is difficult in extreme weather, but can also be a lot of fun. Picking 500 Shiraz vines in 30+ heat? Still one of my better jobs!

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  5. If you get a chance at Nicaraguan...grab it. Super Arabica high grown coffee!

    Comparing the vendange with coffee picking...give me the vendange!

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  6. What an amazing place. Love your photos, Fly! Even though I prefer tea to coffee, I do enjoy coffee occasionally and I will be thinking of your lovely photos the next time I sip a cuppa. :)

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    Replies
    1. It is lovely here, Linda....nice to have your thoughts over a coffee.

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  7. I grew up with Panama's coffee which puts most of the store bought stuff available here right in the bin...These days I am more of a tea drinker...

    Best to you and Mr. Fly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We are both tea drinkers, but visitors here expect coffee.
      Something I learned early on was to check the coffee packets carefully...the 'export' quality is pure coffee...the others have ten per cent sugar added.

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  8. What amazing scenery! I never realised how hard it was to harvest coffee. It certainly makes me appreciate my morning cuppa!

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    Replies
    1. It is beautiful...but if I go up to northern Nicaragua again and the new camera is tamed I'll take some pictures up there...it is breathtaking.

      We're on land that was put down to coffee in the boom times...not high enough to class as highland, and picking early, thus in the rains, on steep slopes.

      Trust us to do it the hard way....

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  9. Have you heard of workaway? Could be useful perhaps... http://www.workaway.info/

    "Workaway.info is a site set up to promote fair exchange between budget travellers, language learners or culture seekers and families, individuals or organizations who are looking for help with a range of varied and interesting activities.
    Our philosophy is simple:

    A few hours honest help per day in exchange for food and accommodation and an opportunity to learn about the local lifestyle and community, with friendly hosts in varying situations and surroundings.
    Our aims are:

    to promote cultural understanding between different peoples and lands throughout the world.
    to enable people travelling on a limited budget to fully appreciate living and working in a foreign environment.
    to enable language learners to experience different countries and immerse themselves in their target language whilst living abroad."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, I hadn't. Thank you.
      I'd heard of Woofers but we're not organic.
      Anyone coming here would certainly be immersed in Spanish...but whether it was the Spanish they expected is something else!

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    2. I forgot to say that I love the photos - so lush, and so colourful, but that your coffee cultivation sounds a pain in the wotsit!

      I hope it tastes delicious. :)

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    3. Real pain in the proverbial!
      When we were still in France we used to take green coffee back (illegal in the quantities in our suitcases) and roast it ourselves on the wood stove...it was super.
      Here we roast it over the smoker/barbecue. Still good!
      The other pain is getting the fruit off...the acid is not good for water courses...and then the parchment to remove from the two grains....
      I saw a machine in Nicaragua which would do the job..cheap...but the import tax beyond belief!.

      It is beautiful here...I look out from the balcony every breakfast time and wonder why we took so long to get here.

      Delete
  10. What a great post and with much information I did not know. I had no idea that growing and picking coffee was so difficult. I just drink it and enjoy, now I will give a lot more thought to the growth and the pickers with each cup I drink.

    Hmm a blogging gathering might be a good idea :-) Take care Diane

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We learned on the job, as it were, with the invaluable help of Danilo and Don Antonio and we are...as I said in a reply to Ayak...marginal for coffee.

      I'll put up a post showing the coffee collection point when I can....

      A blogging gathering would be great fun!

      Delete
  11. I was just going to mention workaway.com - Sarah beat me to it. It's a fantastic scheme. We had such a lovely Swiss school teacher here for a week recently to help me with the house and garden until I was feeling well again. She instantly became part of the family and we really enjoyed each other's company. There are hundreds of people worldwide looking for opportunities to travel to far-flung places and work in return for living as part of the family. Worth looking in to, Fly. And by the way, any chance of some photos of you clad in the bin liners? :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I will take a look...now Mr. Fly is feeling a lot better he might be able to take company wheras before he certainly could not!

      Me in bin liner mode beats the Seville penitents by a long chalk!

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  12. Glad you found the photos, Fly. :-) A really fascinating and informative post. I had no idea coffee was so difficult to harvest. I mainly drink tea nowadays, but enjoy the occasional cup of really good coffee and Arabica is one of my favourites.

    PS A blogging meet-up in an exotic location would certainly get my vote.

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  13. PPS Your landscape is truly stunning!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. To get at these I had to dislodge Mr. Fly from the PC where they are stored....he's researching to what other use we might put the land....so I had to wait until he took a nap!

      Coffee is not the easiest crop...you need regular pruning, clearing the undergrowth - we don't use Roundup - and on our soil additions of lime and fertiliser, so it's not a just 'go out and pick it' job.

      That landscape is a constant joy in all weathers!

      A blogging meet would be great fun....

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  14. My view of my locale this morning was spoilt by the discovery that some late night reveller had shat on my front lawn. Give me the smell of coffee any day.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Not, I do hope and trust, someone on their way to ASDA....

      I have some wonderfully spiny plants to make a hedge if I could smuggle them past customs on a future visit.

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  15. This is amazing - do you have to be "young" for workaway - I'd like to give it a go. Can you not feed for coffee beans to civet cats to eat and poo out? I've heard this is the most expensive coffee in the world.

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    1. I don't have the impression there's an age limit from what Susie said.

      As far as I'm aware we don't have civet cats...I could be wrong...and my last encounter with a minor member of the big cat club I can do without repeating.

      Don't Argon nuts go through goats first, too?
      I have some Argon oil...but regard it somewhat dubiously.

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