Thursday, December 18, 2008

One Cup Of Joe...

I really enjoy a good cup of coffee (or two or three) each morning. I have been thinking lately about how in Costa Rica this is the end of harvest season for the coffee beans. For a couple of months, men and women work from sun up to sun down picking berries (cherries) off of bushes. They make about $0.60- $1.50 per basket of cherries. They average 8-12 baskets per day.

Here is a bush full of cherries...


Here is a Costa Rican man picking...




Cherries in the basket...





You have to break open the cherry to find the coffee bean inside....


One of the hazards are the poisonous snakes and spiders that also enjoy the cherries and the bushes! Yuck! The pickers sell their baskets to men with trucks who take them to the processors to be pealed,roasted, packaged, & shipped- then right to my kitchen.

I really enjoy my cup of coffee in the morning. Now, I really appreciate it too.

5 comments:

Dalene said...

Coffee is such a huge industry. You're right...we should appreciate the labor that is involved! We should say a prayer for whoever picked the cherries every time we drink a cup!

Love you!! Please! Let's do coffee SOON!!!

Laura said...

Wow...that was a cool lesson. I am now even more grateful for my cup of coffee. :) Thanks for sharing and the really neat pictures. Love you friend!

Aubrey said...

That's quite the process, I had no idea. Definitely does make a person appreciate it more...takes a lot of work just to get enough beans to make a cup of coffee.

Marci said...

You had told me a bit about this process when we were out there, but I needed the reminder- - -thanks. I LOVE coffee- - -maybe we should all go out to the coffee fields and pick for a day to truly appreciate our morning cup of coffee.

Robbins' Nest said...

That's really cool! Thanks for sharing. We love our coffee too, I'll try to buy Costa Rica brands from now. :) Happy New Year!