This Week in Coffee, Edition 3

Pride Monday I picked coffee. The men working on the house on the property I was picking on were eager…

Measuring Up

A bilingual evaluation of coffee measurements. How many manzanas fit in your hectare? When did acres turn into hectares? Maybe…

Researchers are only scratching the surface of the long term harm pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and some fertilizers can have on…

Expertise One strength in life is knowing your strengths, another is knowing how to put them to work. Roberto knows…

Llevame- [2nd person imperative, informal]. Carry me. Take me away. Rule #1 for getting around in Costa Rica: DO accept…

I’ve been having a lot of Reading Rainbow moments lately; there’s lots going on in Latin America and in coffee,…

Trampa– (n. f.) trap, snare. Hacer trampas. To cheat. Farmers can’t cheat. If stuff doesn’t grow, stuff doesn’t grow. At…

What’s one of the most common comments I get about my blog, to which I devote substantial energy and dedication…

Research Monday I visited the Center for Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education (CATIE), where Elias proudly gave me a…

Survey Answers Before landing in Costa Rica, I’d only seen one coffee plant: the one on display in the Tropical…

Part of the job of any traveler is to be an ambassador for his/her home nation, so part of my…

I had to plan an opening activity for a poetry unit I was teaching for an NYU class, and my…

Living in New York I paid close attention to the weather, but it was usually to determine whether or not…

Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers” makes lots of interesting points, but one particularly interesting section is where he tries to tease…

If New York City were in the tropics, all Starbucks would open onto hillsides filled with coffee, and patrons would…