The coffee farm of Cafe Cristina

There is a local coffee grower here who does very high quality organic coffee from start to finish on their own farm outside of the next town, Paraiso (Paradise). I met with Linda for a tour of the place she and her husband Ernest have built up over the last 17 years. She took me into the campo (field) showing me the organic products on the ground, the insect and spore damage, and some nasty plants that strangle off the coffee if you are not careful. I DID say I was interested in learning what some of the difficulties in organic coffee cultivation are...They do all of their own processing in a very ingenious and sustainable production facility that was partially designed by Ernie. The coffee comes from the field and is placed into the first machine which separates the seed from the pulp and skin. Pulp and skin go into a large composting section, where a bit of bio digester is added to get it started. The finished compost is used for planting new coffee plants, in the garden, and for landscaping and fertilizer on existing plants. I felt and smelled the almost finished compost, its perfect. Then, the beans go into this machine that Ernie inveneted to remove the slimy sweet gelatinous stuff covering the beans (called miel or honey), getting the coffee beans clean and ready for drying. The part that was most interesting to me is that in a hto confined space, this miel sludge is somehow producing methane gas. Ernie and Linda have been cooking with this for many years!