Sometimes a New Roaster is Necessary

Sometimes I just get frustrated with roasters.  Sometimes I get tired with roasters that want me to bring in the coffee to be processed then return the next day to pick it up.  Yes, I mean some of them don't want me hanging around the 2-3 hours for them to complete the processing.  It doesn't take a lot of insight to realize that it's better to not leave one's coffee unattended.

I got flustered really quickly with the roaster that put the "ground coffee" in the bags for "whole grain" and visa versa.  Sorta messes up the sales angle.  

And I've never been happy with the roasters that crank up the roasting fire a LOT, resulting in part of the grains burning - and obviously changing the flavor of the coffee.

In other words, we've come across a list of unsatisfactory issues.  But I swear this one is different. The name of the place is Cafe Haug in San Pablo, fairly close to Santa Maria de Dota, the coffee growing heart of Costa Rica.  

Granted it's a 3 hour drive one-way through the mountains on a two lane, super windy road.  I had my doubts it would prove to be worth the trouble.  But I must say I was delighted at the service and the attitudes of these youngsters.  Plus the resultant coffee was the best.  Actually, the experience resembled a visit to Coffee Processing Disneyland.

Their official office and waiting room, featuring their own brand of coffee in the rack on the wall.

Complete with an open coffee bar

They mix specialty blends.

This is their stage one coffee processor for beginning to remove the parchment covering from the coffee grain.

Roberto appears to be the brains behind cleaning the coffee grains.  This is the machine he uses for stage two of removing the parchment coating of the coffee grain.

A super cool gas fired coffee roaster with a 10 kilogram capacity.

Grinding, weighing and sealing the coffee

This French Press coffee maker must hold around 30 ounces of coffee and keeps it warm for a long time.  Roberto mixes his own preferred special blend of coffees, then roasts it to a medium roast in order to preserve the full flavor of the natural coffee.  It's available for customers to enjoy, along with some sweet bread. 

If you drink our coffee, we'd love to hear what you think of this latest roast.  Yes, it is a medium to medium dark roast but there's a reason for not going for the darker tones. The darker roast may be "stronger" however when coffee is roasted that long, many of the volatile oils get burned off along with the flavor notes they could have added to your next cup of coffee.  The volatile oils hold the more delicate flavors.

In my opinion, the flavor of our coffee roasted at Cafe Haug was superior to nearly all of the four other roasters we've tried.  Roberto treats each batch of coffee that he roasts like it is his own personal coffee.

The other really good coffee processor is right here in this little valley.  This inventive guy uses equipment that he made himself for cleaning and roasting his own coffee that he grows.  That's amazing.  The only issue is that his roasting set up only processes 2 kilograms at a time.  When needing to roast 25 kilograms, that could take a while.  But nevertheless, it's quite the experience hanging out with the family including all their pets while helping out where possible.  

After all the work of planting the coffee plants then intimately caring for each and every one for years, then harvesting, depulping and drying the coffee - I feel really let down when I'm not satisfied with the final roasting.  Both of these coffee roasters give me hope for the future.  

 Here's our coffee presentation:

Organic coffee at its finest.  This year's coffee harvest.

We haven't roasted any of this year's coffee yet but it sure looks gorgeous. 

Also, to let you know that our newly published book, Leaving Behind Normalcy, is now available on Amazon in hard copy and as an E-book.  Here's where you can find both formats:

Paperback and E-book: "Leaving Behind Normalcy"

For a different perspective on becoming an expat, I recommend checking it out.  

IT'S DONE - FINISHED - COMPLETE !!

I'm not referring to the farm- it'll NEVER be done.  I mean the book about the Two Little Expats (us) leaving our normal lives and diving into becoming Central American nature worshipers.  It's the book about confronting what it takes to create that new life, about finding the farm, about struggling to be spiritually bonded with Mother Earth while being muscled around by biodiverse 3D life in Costa Rica. 

THAT book.  

It's done, finished, complete, and ready to go.

 Leaving Behind Normalcy

by Golda Starr

Intending to give an insight to leaving the US in search of an undefined something, the book tracks our experiences all the way to the present day where we live as uprooted immigrants in a new and different land.

Plucking ourselves out of US culture and planting ourselves in a foreign land, opened a huge door for remaking ourselves, this time not based on societal expectations.  What kind of a life would you make for yourself if you could do whatever you wanted?  That's what we set out to find out.  

If you're interested in peeking behind the curtain to see what really happened to us when we took off from the US, you might want to check out the book.  Currently Leaving Behind Normalcy is available on Amazon as an ebook and in print version.

From your friends, the Two Little Expats:  

Starr and Jeff 

STILL ON THE HILL !!

 What a strange few years we've all been going through.  Personally, I'm more glad than ever to live at the end of the road in a third world country.  Living outside the modern day bubble has some real advantages.  Like emotional peace.

Yes, it's been quite a while since we've posted on the blog.  Sorry about that.  But it isn't for lack of thinking of you.  If you read this, please drop us a note letting us know what's up.  You're our connection to the outside world.

There have been a lot of changes here.  A lot.  To really update you, we've put together a book which will soon be out as an ebook and in print, both versions will be available on Amazon.

"Leaving Behind Normalcy"

The book begins with our decision to get out of Dodge and goes up to present time, addressing insights we've had and stages we've had to pass through.  

The first matter at hand is how our packaged coffee currently looks:

Love it!!  We tried a new roaster who did a nice job on the roast.

The only concern is that the "ground coffee" is in bags that say 

"whole bean"

and the "whole bean" bags say "ground coffee".  

Either way, it tastes great.

 

 

The development of the property and projects has continued moving forward.  Possibly the most meaningful project we've undertaken is with respect to:

 

Volunteers

 

For the past few years they have made our day.  Coming from all over the world, they bring us news of the outside world and of their personal worlds.  They enjoy working with us, teaching us and learning from us.  So to accommodate them we built the Outlook, a large, open-air kitchen and dining room with an amazing view of the valley.  The volunteers sleep in the homestead cabin with three private rooms available.  We normally host 2-3 people at a time. 

 

Best of all, volunteers keep us company.  Here's a smattering of photos of some volunteers over the past several years, all memorable people. 

 

 

Around these parts, she's known as Super Woman

 

This looks a bit odd, right?  We lay the sheep down on their backs 

in order to clip their hooves. This is Molly, the ugliest sheep in the world.  

And also my favorite.

 

Bamboo conference.  Serious stuff.

 

He's going to get a huge rack of bananas to bring home

 for making fertilizer.

 

 

Such an amazing group of volunteers

 

We picked the coffee then de-pulped it.  Now the beans are

laid out in the sun for the first level of drying.

 

 

Honestly, we've sponsored upwards of a hundred volunteers in recent years and have a whole host of unforgettable memories as a result of it.  

Again, let me know when this post arrives to your in box  If I don't hear from you, I'll presume your contact info has changed.

Our joint email address hasn't changed.  It's still:

        

        TwoLittleExpats@gmail.com

 

Jeff's on facebook, as usual.  I've been off of it for years now and just re-entered.  My facebook page consists of a profile picture - only.  

 

Our favorite way to communicate is by Whats App.  Let's catch up. 

 

Now for a thousand photos of volunteers we've hosted:

 

Our first volunteer learning to make sulfur calcium, an organic fungicide.

 

 

This German couple renovated the inside of the homestead cabin.

See you guys later.  Have a good life in Switzerland.

 

Chilling with the pup.

 

You put this here like this.  Then you do that other thing 

to the you-know-what.

Having an audience can be entertaining.

They taught us how to make noodles.  Impressive.

 Yee-Haw!!  We'll just go tie her to a tree, then I'll sit on her 

while you clip her wool.  We'll see how that works out. 

The first time shearing sheep for this Maltese couple.

 

A-dios amigos!

Planting trees

 

 

Feeling silly and chilly.  But you know about those Argentines.

One is holding the sheep on her back and the other 

is trimming the hooves. It's cozy.

The French guys built their first gate.

Setting up to install the worm bins.

 

They rescued two abandoned puppies and nursed them back to health.  

Talk about dedication.

 

This sure beats working in a BANK!!

She discovered the finer virtues of pole saws 

and the joys of pruning trees.

I love you so much!

Nursing the abandoned pups for several months.

Pull with everything you've got - then run like hell.

I'll bet they don't do this in Germany. 

They're directing the Asper bamboo cane that Jeff is cutting down - 

so that it MAY not hit and damage nearby trees.

 

Happy Birthday . . . to someone.

Are you looking at me, cutie?

Mixing with local expats.

The compost making class.

I think we should plant them here.  Ok, let's string up a trellis

for the black beans to climb on.

Oh shucks!

We cut the sugar cane then took it to the neighbor to be milled into 

sugar cake (tapa dulce).  Here we have representation from France, Italy and China.

Loading up bamboo canes for a friend.

I'll hold the ladder for you.

 

The German chicken and sheep Queen.

Garden roof raising.

The two new worm bins set next to the sheep platform.

Meet Nabie, one of the two abandoned puppies.  She's now my shadow.

 

Amazing wood worker

Scrubbing down the plastic greenhouse roof

We have so enjoyed sponsoring volunteers.  Although we readily admit that it's exhausting.  Since they come and go every two weeks to two months, we are forever training, forever teaching, forever telling the same stories and explaining the same things.

For the past few months we've been taking a break, giving us time to take care of the little tasks that we haven't been able to do for a while.  By now I feel a rumbling within, that the time is near of accepting new volunteers again.  We'll see how that rumble rolls.

In the meantime, please let us know if you've received our note so we can update our contact list and begin re-entering the land of family and friends.

Here's the final flurry of Photos.  Enjoy!

With just a little instruction, this couple was off to the races.

Our youngest volunteers.  Perfectly amazing people.

He taught us how to trim sheep's hooves.

 

Showing us how to create a "bio-digester"

 

 

 

Electricity class

 

 

She's cutting the ceramic tiles for installation in the Outlook kitchen

He came all the way from South Africa. 

Lining a raised garden row with block

Happy trails!  Off to make a life in Panama.

I wonder if I could make a pot with this clay by the creek.

And so she did.

Introducing the German finance manager/arborist who has 

his own timber trees in the Black Forest.  He's training us on how to manage our timber trees.

Learning to dress like an arborist.

They come to learn.  They come to teach.

Making bamboo "nails"

Brits de-pulping coffee cherries

 

 

I heard you guys accept volunteers.

It doesn't happen very often anymore, but once in awhile 

unexpected visitors arrive.  And we still don't know how to manage them.

I mean seriously, what do you do when a cow parks at your doorstep?!

 

A first-time pruning for a cinnamon tree.  We're working on 

strategies for removing the cinnamon bark from the branches.

 

The amazing German sisters who jumped in to take care 

of bottle feeding and entertaining triplets.

 

This volunteer gained the nick name of "Woody." 

He started out as a group project and now lives in she sheep shed

as a scarecrow.

 

As pleasant and interesting as they appear

 

After planting a sugar cane plot and dozens upon dozens of plantains,

this pandemic pair of professional photographers continued on 

their journey.  Unforgettable.

 

Having volunteers has been amazing.  In a way, it has been the reason for all this.  

 

When we began this late life escapade, we had no idea where it would take us.  When we bought this abandoned coffee farm with thousands of sick and dying coffee plants, we had no idea where it would take us.  When we realized the pathetic condition of the soil here, we had little idea how to revitalize it.

 

Now we understand so much more.  We had to take this long walk in order to arrive at a life changing waterfall.

 

Let's stay in touch.  We've left the porch light on.