{"id":5293,"date":"2016-02-17T08:39:44","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T13:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5293"},"modified":"2016-03-17T07:03:22","modified_gmt":"2016-03-17T11:03:22","slug":"costa-rica-culture-and-coffee-cultivation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5293","title":{"rendered":"Costa Rica Culture and (Coffee) Cultivation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Costa Rica\u2019s long cultural history gives life there today its special flavor. Yes, smartphones and satellite dishes are ubiquitous, but they exist alongside healthy remnants of the past. We didn\u2019t see any of the remaining villages of several pre-Columbian tribes that sparsely peopled the landscape that became Costa Rica. However, our Tropical Comfort Tours<\/a> guide Jose told us a lot about them in the car ride on our \u201cculture day.\u201d When the Spanish came in the 1500s, they were most interested in the mountain-dwelling tribe, the Boruca, who they hoped might have more gold. They brought with them their religion, and the country remains heavily Catholic.<\/p>\n

\"Liberia

Immaculate Church of the Conception, Liberia<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Liberia

Altar decorated for Lenten services<\/p><\/div>\n

Late one afternoon we took a cab into the provincial capital of Liberia (a 40-minute ride) and observed a jam-packed Ash Wednesday service. The cross-shaped piercings on all sides of the church let the breezes through, and the priest\u2019s vestments billowed dramatically. The altar has been prepared to look like a grotto, with an entombed Christ in the center in preparation for Easter. The photo captures only a small portion, including a man in black still working on the lights. I\u2019ve never seen anything like it!<\/p>\n

\"Costa<\/p>\n

We were delighted with a demonstration of traditional pottery-making by a young man from Guait\u00edl. The pots from there are made on a hand-operated wheel and include representations of local plants and animals, as well as symbolic elements that date back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The pot I selected features a bold toucan.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A Coffee Quiz<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We toured a coffee cooperative<\/a> that takes beans from many small local farmers and combines them for processing and export. How much do you know about coffee?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n
    \"coffee

    Coffee Roaster<\/p><\/div>\n

    The tall coffee plant variety grown in Brazil must be mechanically picked. This is faster and cheaper, but is the quality better, yes or no?<\/li>\n

  2. In Costa Rica, an expert coffee bean picker makes about: $10 a day; $20 a day; $40 a day.<\/li>\n
  3. When coffee beans are processed, the defective, unripe, partially worm-eaten beans are separated out and: thrown away; used for planting the next crop; sold to the food industry for use in candies, cookies, liqueurs, etc.<\/li>\n
  4. Dark roast coffee has more caffeine than light roast. True or False?<\/li>\n
  5. Who produces the best coffee: Colombia, Costa Rica, or Hawaii?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Answers: 1. NO! 2. $20 a day. 3. Sold to the food industry. 4. False. 5. All three!<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"Costa<\/p>\n

    Surprisingly, in a country with no military whose people are legendarily congenial and non-confrontational, so many people even in remote areas have outfitted their windows with bars, erected chain-link fences around their property, and not uncommonly topped them with barbed wire. We ate at a seafood restaurant in Liberia (Tierra Mar<\/em>) surrounded by a fence topped with razor wire.<\/p>\n

    (All photos by the author.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Costa Rica\u2019s long cultural history gives life there today its special flavor. Yes, smartphones and satellite dishes are ubiquitous, but they exist alongside healthy remnants of the past. We didn\u2019t see any of the remaining villages of several pre-Columbian tribes … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Costa Rica Culture and (Coffee) Cultivation - take the coffee quiz!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[104,78],"tags":[469,128],"class_list":["post-5293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-morgue","category-travel","tag-costa-rica","tag-history"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1nn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5293"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5393,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5293\/revisions\/5393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}