During February, I managed to bike to work on 7 of 29 days in the month.
Of the 29 days during the month, I worked 11 days. One day, I walked to work twice and I drove on the other 2 days.
At the end of the month, I biked to work a total of 7 days.
While on vacation in Panama, we visited the mountain town of Boquette which is located an hour northwest of David. On our first day, we rode out to some hot springs with two couples — one from the Netherlands and one from Canada. After a soak and some rays, we all grabbed dinner in a restaurant with local comida. One day 2 in Boquette, we grabbed a quick bagel and joined up with a group for a tour of the Cafe Ruiz coffee plantation and processing facility. Our host, Carlos, started us from the ground up and showed us their organic plants and reception point. Their is a species of coffee -Geisha or Guessa - that Cafe Ruiz had invested in heavily and was working on bringing a whole crop into harvest in 4-6 years.
Carlos explained the growing process and how Cafe Ruiz grows and processes coffee to be shipped all over the world. Carlos had come to the coffee farm with his brother when he was 10 and his mother had been picking coffee since she was only 16. Ruiz employs indigenous people to pick coffee for salary, health care, schools for children, housing and food. The picking season lasts from about November through March, but processing goes on almost year round. Picking is done with utmost care, by hand, to guarantee peak ripeness and the whole process maximizes the eventual profits for all involved. The plantation is naturally shady from the different kinds of plants that grow among the coffee
After the beans are picked and gathered, they are offloaded into the processing facility where Ruiz buys the beans from the farmers based on how many ‘floaters’ appear in a water test. Prices have quadrupled over the last ten years or so due to, in part, skyrocketing demand for beans. The berries fall through a trap door and enter a washing facility. The washing facility also presorts lesser ‘floater’ beans that will be sold as pre-ground or freeze dried coffee. After washing, they are sorted and pealed to remove the outer (red) skin from around the bean. The pealing machine also pulls out the under-ripened beans, which are discarded and used for composting and fertilizing the fields. From there, the beans are fermented for 24 hours which occurs in a slightly stinky set of 8 vats about the size of a large truck, each. After fermentation, beans are pre-dried, which allows the processing to delay for 4 to 6 weeks.
After pre-drying, beans are bagged and stored in a bodega (warehouse) awaiting the change to be fully dried and sold. When dryers open up, the beans are shelled and tumble dried to prepare them for eventual roasting. The parchment or outter (paper-like) shell is burned to provide the heat that dries the beans. Ash removed from the driers is mixed with compost and chicken dung to be spread back onto the fields as fertilizer. After drying, beans are sorted by size, weight, shape and density to provide equality in roasting and ensure that beans will not burn up. The sorted beans are bagged and ready for export, except for a few tons which stay in country and are roasted in the Cafe Ruiz facility just north of town. We continued the tour in the roasting and packaging facility where Carlos discussing roasts, flavoring, grinding, storage and brewing.
These two know their coffee facts!
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