Paraíso Things to Do

I took a tour of Finca Cristina, producer of the delicious arrabica coffee under the name of Café Cristina. The friendly American owner and his family have lived on this farm for more than 20 years. What makes this place so special is that they use organic processes to farm the crop. Ernie, the owner, will talk endlessly about his fertilizer and nitrogen-fixing trees if you let him. When he found out that the two ladies I was with and I were all from a science-background, he whipped out some extensive vocabulary and scientific terms.

I had never been on a coffee plantation before, so it was interesting to learn all about its production. Here he is demonstrating a very simple process; skinning the coffee beans prior to letting them dry in the sun. This technique has been around for years; you simply let the beans fall through a small hole and scrape against the side of a sharp wheel. The dense beans are retained and the skin falls through.