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Sustainability

Growing coffee
There is only one harvest of coffee a Cafeology
year in Costa Rica so growing coffee
runs annually. The rainy season begins
in May and runs until November.
So in between harvest
Once the rain stops in an area, 12 days seasons, coffee plantations
later you get mass blossoming on need to be maintained by
coffee branches. Plantations are planting, pruning,
covered in small white flowers as far as fertilising, etc. Roberto’s
the eye can see, and the air fills with a farms are typically on the
jasmine aroma for 2 days until the sides of mountains (like
flowers die. most coffee plantations)

Approximately 9 months after the end with coffee trees planted in
of the rain, each blossom has now rows 2 m etres apart, with
become a ripe cherry. Harvest season 1.5 metres between each

begins once the cherries are ripe tree.
(August to March) but ripening times,
and by extension harvest times, vary
due to farm altitude. The trees are planted in
slight terraces that cut
HB (at lower altitudes) ripens first, then slightly into the incline with
GHB (at higher altitudes), and then SHB small trails behind. This
(at the highest altitude) is the last to helps reduce erosion but
ripen towards the end of the season. also allows pickers to work
Due to the altitude of his farms, along the rows of the
Roberto’s harvest season is January to terrace, without scaling up
March (3 months long).
the mountainside carrying
full baskets and risking
spillage.

Every 10 metres Roberto
grows banana trees.
Banana trees provide
shade for the coffee trees

with their large leaves.
Growing crops in the shade
sounds counterintuitive,
and there are some
benefits to no shade
(mainly higher yields but MAY/JUNE. 2024 | ISSUE 36
this is not as good as it
sounds – more to come),
Banana trees provide the shade for however shade growing is
the coffee bushes important for many
reasons.

www.beveragestandardsassociation.co.uk