CAFÉ Por Favor!

Well Friday for Spanish class we went to Jocotenago, a small city right outside of Antigua to go to the Mayan Instrument Museum and Coffee Finca. We saw so many cool things, it was really neat. I’ll start with the instruments. They call this museum the Casa K’ojom and they have authentic Mayan flutes and instruments. We went on a tour where we learned about all the kinds of flutes and instruments the mayans would use during their religious ceremonies and that they still use today, because the Mayan/ Indigenous culture is still existing and practicing here. That’s why I really do see people wearing authentic indigenous trajes walking with people in American Eagle shirts with jeans. It’s really cool, the mezcla between history and current trends. Anyway, they used instruments made out of shells, and horse bones, other animal bones and it was interesting to see how the Spanish influence adding things like the guitar, violin and the marimba; which is the national instrument of Guatemala. We also watched a video of Mayan dances and it got me excited because next week we will be going to a Mayan Ceremony and I will probably have the chance to see a few others during the rest of my service. Plus I really want to go to the Mayan ruins, I mean they are so cool but more on that later.
Anyway, this instrument museum is also on a coffee farm where you can take tours and learn all about Guatemalan coffee. Now it’s time for me to get on my soapbox a little bit… Alright first of all, Guatemala is number 7 in coffee producers for the whole world, and considered 3rd in terms of best flavor, although our tour guide said we were really number one! Ha! Anyway, did you know that coffee plants have to go through 5 stages of processing before we can drink the delicious nectar? Also the inventor of coffee, a farmer in Ethiopia, discovered the coffee plant because his goats were eating these red berries and then they couldn’t sleep. So he ate the red berries to see what was up, and he couldn’t sleep thus the discovery of coffee… ha ha. Anyway, back to the 5 processes. Coffee must first be harvested as a red fruit. It’s really small. Then you peel away the red coating and inside are 2 green slimy seeds. These seeds are then washed off. Then they lay them to dry out for 1-2 weeks!
Then after it dries out, they bag it up and the coffee will maintain its flavor for about 2 years like this… I think. This is also the stage that most coffee manufactures buy the coffee in. Because it is cheaper because the coffee still has to be roasted and ground… Although these 1st three steps are hard work. Anyway, after these the beans can be roasted and then ground up and served deliciously. You can however, eat straight roasted coffee beans. You can also suck off the green slimy coating when you remove the red part of the coffee plant. It tastes pretty sweet and nothing like coffee. The roasting process determines how strong the coffee will be and how dark etc. There is a saying about coffee roasting that goes like this “El café debe ser negro como la noche, fuerte como la passion, dulce como el amor y caliente como el infierno.” Meaning Coffee should be black like the night, strong like passion, sweet like love and hot as hell. I thought that was pretty funny! Now for the soap box, before going to this finca I always thought fair trade coffee was a good idea but it was not something that I felt really passionate about, however I didn’t realize that basically coffee manufactures do their best to pay as little as possible meaning that for every dollar you spend on a cup of coffee only 16 cents goes to the coffee farmers and the big guys make 84 cents on the dollar. So I hope that this will make you think the next time you buy coffee, that you really can help the little guy by buying things that are fair trade. One coffee tree plant only makes 40 cups of coffee per year! Isn’t that mind blowing? But I think what we can conclude is that coffee is delicious and wonderful and we should totally help out our little Guatemalan coffee farmers that make it possible for us to have such a delish breakfast beverage. Also just fyi, most Guatemalans do not even get to drink the good stuff because it is so expensive, instead when you ask for café, it is Nescafe; which basically means it is hot water with a lot of sugar and a hint of coffee flavor. So next the time you go for the Guatemalan blend make sure it’s fair trade so you can support the little guys! Oh and size it up for me!