This week, I am sharing my field note on the famous coffee plant in Guatemala. I visited Finca Filadelfia, one of the largest coffee producers in the country, based in Jocotenango. Finca is Spanish for plantation. The folks at Finca Filadelfia demonstrated how coffee is processed from its inception as a plant to the factory where the beans get roasted. The guide outlined the long history of coffee in Guatemala, as well as some interesting environmental facts about growing coffee.
The most typical coffee plant grown here is the "arabica" variety. It begins as a tiny bush in bags of soil but grows to around two meters in height. The bush has shiny green leaves of medium size. They reminded me of kale or spinach leaves. The stems and branches are quite delicate and flexible. In this finca, the workers graft a thicker stem onto the arabica bush to make sure it does not break. When the bush grows tall, coffee fruits begin to grow along its branches. These round fruits are called "cherries" and look like normal cherries when they are ripe. The coffee beans that we typically think of are, in fact, the seeds, after they have gone through a long process of fermenting, drying and roasting. When the coffee fruit is still not ripe, it is green and tastes like grass.
