The light from an early morning hits my room’s window in my apartment at San Pedro, Costa Rica, an intense sunshine wakes me up, I try to hide covering my face with the blankets, but realize I no longer want to sleep, so I go to the kitchen to brew my first coffee, my mind is slowly waking up to reality, I turn on my computer and go back to the coffee brewing process. A flashback from my last night’s dreaming tells me she was part of my dream, can’t remember much though, an intense feeling travels through my body for an instant.

I grind dark roast coffee beans from Naranjo in my little grinder, the first aroma stimulates my senses, I pour the almost boiling water into my French press coffee brewer, now it smells good! I wish I could remember more from that dream!

Coffee (Coffea arabica) is native to Ethiopia, it was introduced 200 years ago to Costa Rica, impacted positively our country, previous to this moment, our economy was an enclosed local one, not much exportation was done besides the cocoa, which was an important product during colonial times, but latter went into bankrupt due to plundering from an ethnic group named zambos misquitos coming from Caribbean coast of Nicaragua.

Braulio Carrillo, third chief of state during early 1800 gave land for free and a tax free commercial operation for any person in Costa Rica who wanted to grow coffee, since then, people in Costa Rica have own a small piece of land where they have been able to grow not only coffee but other products for their family support. What we see here is a very healthy distribution of wealth at a very early stage of our history, and this is a dramatic event in Latin America; opposite from the majority of countries around, where the common thing is to have a reduced number of extremely wealthy families who own the totality of the land, in Costa Rica we developed an early strong middle class (small land owners) that produced the long lasting democracy we feel proud of.

My coffee cup is halfway drank, the sun warms my body, comfort is the word that comes into my mind, I  remember her wonderful smile, her beautiful eyes staring at me. I met her some time ago, while traveling as a naturalist guide; dark eyes brunette, an incredible smile and her charming personality called my attention in first place, latter, her amazing skills dancing costarrican folklore, rafting, walking through the jungle and horse back riding, completely catch me and made me forget unpleasant passages of my recent past. 

There’s an altitudinal belt that produces the best coffees in Costa Rica; it goes merely from 800 to 1200 meters above sea level, yet another important fact is the acidity of soil, to this point, I must say that Costa Rica is land of volcanoes, therefore, acidity of soil and fertility are abundant.

The natural environment in which this shrub appears on Earth was as an understory member of Ethiopian tropical forest, because of this; all coffee plantations in Costa Rica must have some trees in between to provide partial shade during some time of the year. A few exceptions to this rule happen in cloudy places like Poás just to mention one.

No more coffee is left in my cup -I’m considering brewing some more- this Espíritu Santo coffee from Naranjo is excellent, acidity level, body and aroma are nice and balanced, got it from a visit I did as part of training for guides that was done at Coopronaranjo RL a few days ago, and where we learned the basic on testing coffee as a true connoisseur does.  

Coffee, history, life and love, this is what this article is about, some may say these are unmixable themes, some may think this is a nice combination, all I do is let my soul free and express my feelings. I’ve already talked about coffe and history, about life and love, all I can say is that both are mysterious, one day you are feeling sad because the one you love dropped you suddenly, latter, you feel happy because you may now be in love again and feel lucky, whenever you start to realize you were in the right place at the right moment, to catch your train to wonderland.

I think about the present, past and future in my life, can’t recall any more the passion I felt some years ago for the woman I thought was my sole mate, now days the sadness has long time ago disappeared, from the deepest part of my soul I ask to myself; should  I preserve anger, resentment or love for that amazingly wonderful past? All I can think about to answer such question, is reminding the words from Chugyam Trungpa Rimpoche who said: Events in our life happen, but they don’t come along with a tag that says this is good or bad, they are just unconditional events, we must not judge, nor we must live in past or future, we must simply live Here and Now, and from this constant experiimenting of nowness, a sort of intelligence emerges from which we may achieve true happiness.