Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

I like to say - adapting an old Americanism to the situation - that here in Panama I can really wake up and smell the coffee. The hills around here are dotted with coffee farms. My landlord, Wulf, has his own plot of coffee within just a few yards of my front door.

Every morning I brew myself my daily ambrosia made from beans grown in that plot.

There is no other way to put it than bluntly: the coffee here is so much better than any I ever had in North America or Europe. After hearing me remark about the coffee here, several locals have quietly let me know that the coffee they sell abroad is inferior, and that the best of the crop is reserved for here. I can believe it.

One morning I had the immense pleasure of helping to pick this season's crop of coffee beans. The small white flowers on these plants (somewhere between bush- and tree-size) exude a delicious aroma, and the beans themselves have a soft white pulp that is surprisingly sweet and delicious - and full of caffeine, so don't eat too many!

There was something satisfying about this simple, pleasant chore. After watching onion harvesters at work the previous day, and being tempted to join them for a while, this was a treat.

I wondered as I gathered the beans who it was who first said, "You know, Bill, I've got a great idea. Let's try gathering these beans, clean out the stems, wash them, skin them, let them ferment, then let them dry until they're black, roast them, grind them up, and finally put them in a strainer and pour hot water through them, and drink the results."

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As they come to me to be written, new chapters will be added to this blog, so stay tuned! But the blogs up to a certain point are now chapters are now in a book.

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