28 March 2010 * El Trapiche

In the afternoon, we went on the El Trapiche plantation tour. It was an interesting and pleasant introduction to traditional family-run coffee and sugar cane farming in rural Costa Rica.



We learned that:

• bananas and plantain trees that grow for one year, fruit once, then die, but the roots persist to sprout new trees
• plantain trunks are green-brown; banana trunks are black
• the Arracache, a plant of the celery family, looks like ginger, tastes like potato, and is traditionally cooked for wedding celebration feasts
• sugar cane harvesting is hazardous:
• the leaf edges are very sharp and cut like paper
• the stem tops are guarded by a coat of tiny sharp cactus-like spines
• the dead leaves provide perfect habitat for rats, who eat the cane
• the dead leaves provide perfect habitat for poisonous snakes, who eat the rats
• coffee plants take 2-3 years to grow and can only be harvested 2-3 times bofore they must be cut to grow new shoots
• coffee plants are productive for 20-25 years
• coffee pickers from Nicaragua and Panama earn $2/basket, and average 8-12 baskets/day
• light roast has higher caffeine content than dark roast
• coffee beans have a soft fruity husk and a hard inner shell
• traditional Tico oxcarts are pulled by a team of two ox steers; their three basic commands are Go, Stop, and Back-up
• El Trapiche, a sugar cane press, was traditionally turned by ox team
• the bark of the female Budia tree is used to remove dirt and other contaminants from vats of boiling sugar cane juice
• sugar cane juice is cooked into a syrup, then stirred quickly as it cools to crystallize into sugar

This last fact we learned first-hand. Our tour guides poured a pat of syrup for us, wo which we added coconut and chocolate powder. Then we stirred it with a wooden spoon until it suddenly transformed into candy. Delicious!