Monteverde/Santa Elena, Costa Rica

 Fabulous day touring the area. 

First up was a coffee-chocolate-sugar cane tour at Don Juan’s farm.  Our tour guide was very friendly and informative!

We all got to sample a raw cocoa seed.  Wet gooey and sweet. Didn’t taste like chocolate at all.  

He cut a seed so we could see the center.  It’s purple when raw. 

Next he ground some roasted cocoa beans the old fashioned way.  It tasted like 100% cocoa. Bitter and wonderful!

He explained that the cocoa trees need a particular mosquito for pollination.  That mosquito is not abundant in the area but likes banana trees  so they plant banana trees nearby    

Next was a few treats. Our guide ground up some roasted cocoa beans, mixed in some sugar, bananas, sugar, salt and vanilla for a fresh chocolate treat we all got to sample. Delicious!

This was the chocolate “paste”.  

And we were allowed samples of some of their factory processed chocolate and chocolate covered coffee beans. Yum!

Next on the tour was a sugar cane demo. They only grow sugar cane for their own uses making their chocolate.  This sweet family from England volunteered to help squeeze the juice out of the cane. 

Then our guide served up a cup of cane juice for each of us.  Hmmm, slightly sweet but grassy flavored. Not a favorite. 

Last stop on the tour. Coffee bushes

Beans in various states of dryness. 

Our guide showing us a quick method of roasting a few beans. 

Beans waiting for transport to market. 

And a big automatic roaster. 

And more coffee plants. A fun way to spend two or three hours, and we learned a lot!

Next up was a tour of an orchid preserve. this was mostly for Sharon because she loves orchids! I won’t even pretend to tell you that I know the names of any of these flowers. Not All our orchids, but they were very pretty and a fun way to spend an hour. I’ll just post the photos for you to enjoy.

We move a few hours south over to the Pacific beach town of Jaco for a few days tomorrow.