As soon as I can afford it (not nearly as soon as I’d like) I need to take a trip to origin. Participating in a coffee harvest is a must for a guy like me. There are certain questions about farming and processing that I won’t ever fully be able to explain, no matter the amount of reading or pictures, without a trip to coffee’s source. It’s a bummer because I am awful at saving money for things like that.
So you can imagine my excitement when I saw two coffee trees at the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park yesterday.
I’ve seen a couple of trees before. There is one at the Peet’s home office in Emeryville and Four Barrel has a little one. But the two at the Conservatory are pretty sweet because of all the other plants that they’re around. Even though it is just a generic tropical climate with plants from different continents, for a second you kind of feel like you’re in a place where coffee is grown.
We went yesterday to take advantage of the free day, which is the first Tuesday of every month. The current exhibit, also free, is called “Chomp!” and is about carnivorous plants. We watched a beetle almost fall into a pitcher plant and it was pretty exhilarating. There are loads of orchids and carnivorous plants all throughout the place though, and it’s a really awesome place to be.
If you want to know more about how coffee is grown, there are tons of resources out there. When I was first learning about different origins, I would (and still do) search the region on Google Earth. There are lots of pictures that people have uploaded of coffee farms in there, and it’s pretty fun when you stumble on them. Sometimes, you can guess that certain shapes are drying beds or milling stations.
A more reliable source for learning about stuff is Sweet Maria’s. I learned a lot early on from them. Tom has some nice Travelogues with great pictures. And aside from that, there is lots of nice information on just about everything coffee related. You might even end up home roasting.
Maximum Grindage 