Coffee and More Coffee!

 Since our arrival here at the end of October the harvesting of coffee has mushroomed!  Earlier we showed photos of coffee on the vines and now we will share what happens next.  Berlin is a coffee mecca and daily we are amazed at the amount of coffee that gets picked and leaves this hilltop for the processors.

Each day as picking comes to an end and bags of coffee are loaded into the vehicles available to go to the Receiver.  The pickers are paid by the basket and the farmer is paid by the Fenaga which is measured at the Receiver.  There are also some coffee growers

who bring their coffee to the Receiver in a vehicle with very high sides and a "spout"  (not sure what it is really called) in the back.  The advantage of this type of truck is that the coffee does not need to be bagged and is just shoveled into the measuring devise at the Receiver.  The shovel is huge and reminds us of a coal shovel from our childhood.

The Receiver opens later in the day until after dark and as we walk by there this is what we see.  The pickers and the trucks laden with coffee line up to be emptied into the Receiver.  The process is very organized and everyone is very patient and content waiting for their turn to unload.  When it is time to load the coffee into the Receiver, everyone pitches in and the job is completed quite  smoothly.

smoothly.

The blue truck here in the back is one that   does not require the coffee to be bagged. The vehicles of choice for working coffee farms here in Costa Rica are the Toyota Land Cruiser or /Toyota Hilux which is made specifically for Costa Rica.  These vehicles are strong enough to carry many pounds of coffee up and down the many steep gravel and paved roads of the area.  Many of these vehicles are quite old but just keep on working!

As the Receivers are filled they are loaded into these huge trucks.  All day and into the evening these trucks arrive empty and head back to town full of the berrys that have been picked that day.  The trucks are powerful and very heavy and when they pass by our casa at a good clip our house feels like we are in the middle of an earthquake!  
Once the berries leave Berlin and head to the processor we are not sure what happens next!  Finding that out is on our list of things to do but there are more important issuses to deal with first.  Once we know the next steps we promise to share them with all of you!