Another cup of coffee before we go*

Today we took a boat across Lake Atitlan and visited a coffee plantation; and before you ask, yes of course it was a co-operative where the profits go straight to the growers and not to some fat-cat capitalists and yes of course it was organic. It was really interesting to see the coffee bushes growing in the shade of trees which makes the coffee taste better but the trees are also beneficial to the birds and animals which help to destroy the insects that attack the coffee bushes and also act as natural barriers against erosion in the rainy season when waters run down from the mountains. The coffee beans were ripening and we saw them being picked by hand – picking has to be done by hand because berries on the same branch ripen at different rates. Currently the huge agro-chemical companies are trying to grow GM coffee that will ripen all at the same time so that picking can be done mechanically and put more people out of work. Please boycott GM foods and if possible buy organic and fair trade, you will not only be helping to save the planet you will also be helping to lift farmers like those we saw today out of poverty. This is particularly important in a country like Guatemala where 70% of the land that can be cultivated is owned by 2% of the population.


We then saw the processing of the beans – the pulp that is removed from the beans goes straight back as compost on the plants. The beans are washed and then dried in the sun for about 48 hours and are turned every half-an-hour, Gregg had a go with the rakes that are used to turn the beans.


The beans are not roasted here but are sold in their ‘raw’ state to coffee producers in Europe and the USA. Only the finest quality is exported – all the other stuff is used for home consumption and is the stuff we’ve been getting at breakfast most mornings. For a time the greatest contributor to the Guatemalan economy was tourism but once again coffee is now the greatest.
We finished the tour with a tasting; we asked for an “expresso” but this being Guatemala, which operates on watermelon time, they took about 20 minutes to arrive. But it was worth the wait as they tasted very good indeed.
*Bob Dylan