Costa Rican Coffee and Plantation Visit

This is what the coffee looks like growing on the plant. I was surprised that the plants also have flowers on them.
Country side on the way to the plantation.
Hangin out in the coffee fields.To give you a size of each plant.
They let the beans dry out using the sun as shown here above.
We arrived at the coffee plantation today 5-21-2008 which was called Del Cafe Tal, or its the name of the coffee brand. The lady who owns the plantation, Daisy, did not speak hardly any english, but spoke to us via a translator. We were very excited to hear that her plantation is the #1 in all of Costa Rica regarding quality. We could purchase the coffee beans for $10/pound(I think she gave us a discount). We learned a lot about coffee in Costa Rica and the difference between organic vs. non-organic coffee farms. The plantation today was organic for a short while and was very unproductive so the owner decided to switch back to the traditional approach(fertilizer...etc).

Coffee production began in Costa Rica in 1779 in the Meseta Central. This area had very very rich soil and a near perfect climate for the plant. Coffee growing soon surpassed cacao, tobacco, and sugar in importance and by 1829 it had become the major source of foreign revenue. Costa Ricans take much pride in the quality of their coffee rather than the quantity. We learned today that the plantation owner gets 15% return on the actual value(selling price) of the coffee. Lets say the coffee sells in stores for $100, she would get $15 of that. It was very interesting to know that Costa Rica exploits cheap labor too! They have immigrants from Nicaragua do the cheap labor and make $.60 per bag of coffee collected. They collect about 12 bags a day, thus around $7 dollars a day in cheap labor.