Coffee. Coffeeeeee.

This is one of a series of posts on our 2012 trip to Costa Rica. If you like, you can start with the first post.

On the way down from Vulcán Poás, we passed one of many “Cave Canem” signs that we would see on our trip (I never did see a Doberman there, though).

When we stopped for lunch, our tour company arranged for a group of young people to stage a dance of the indigenous peoples from pre-Columbian times.  Here you see the shaman wearing a replica of one of the gold disks that I saw in the Museo del Oro yesterday.  He’s been inhaling the smoke from the sacred leaf burner that the priestess is holding.  Shortly the priestess will remove her frock and be joined a other young female dancers and the whole thing gets a little erotic.

Our appetites thus stimulated, we eat lunch, and then head on to a coffee plantation. There were several historical artifacts there, including this example of the national symbol of Costa Rica, the oxcart. The coffee company put on a humourous skit about the history of coffee cultivation, and finished with a demonstration of how to brew the perfect cup of coffee. I won the door prize of a bag of coffee. We exited through the gift shop, where I was able to select the coffee variety that I wanted. There were several different beans and roasts available, but I can’t handle caffeine anymore, so I asked for a sample of their decaf. It was the best decaf I had ever tasted in my life. I brought home two bags and tossed them in our freezer.

When we got back, I forgot to take one of the bags into work with me. So I just brewed a cup of the coffee that I had. It was a good coffee, twelve dollars a pound, purchased and ground at a local deli. But after two weeks of sipping Costa Rican coffee, it tasted like mud. I am totally spoiled.