Costa Rica Day 6.

Today I toured a coffee plantation. I really liked the coffee in this country, and I thought it would be cool to see where it all came from. I decided to go to the Doka Estate , which apparently has the best coffee in Costa Rica. When I got there, the place was beautiful, I had the wind in my hair, blowing a sweet smell of herbs and wet soil to me. It was an oddly refreshing scent that really made me cheer up. I walked up the path that led to the place my group would be meeting. I could see the rows of coffee plants surrounding the estate for almost a mile on every side, with little specks that were the workers picking the coffee berries and tending to the plants. I thought it was so picturesque and lovely that I couldn't wait to start my tour. The first thing we did on out tour was to go to the seed beds, where they start the coffee plants. Then we went into the fields and see the plants and how they are harvested. He showed us what the coffee berries looked like and how they loaded the berries into the bags on trucks. Then we went to the processing plant, which is the oldest humid coffee processing plant and is an architectural heritage site. We got to see how the berries are stripped of their outer coating and how the seeds are ground. Afterward we saw the tanks where the grains are fermented to take out the natural honey and bring out the flavor. Last we visited the roasting plant where the seeds are roasted before getting ground at the processing plant. We later got to sample their different kinds of coffee, and I liked the house blend coffee the best. By this time it was getting a bit late in the afternoon, and I had dinner reservations at six, so I headed back to San José. I made it on time to my dinner reservation, and I had a great dinner at a fancy Costa Rican place. I'm getting a bit tiered of Gallo Pinto, but tomorrow's my last day, so I won't be eating it for very much longer. Coffee plant turns into..... ..... delicious foamy coffee! The processing plant