Author: Andres Garza

Oh hi! I’m home now, I was shocked at all the free water restaurants gave us in the US. I forgot it’s all purified, small reverse culture shock. We went to Belize, we moved fast, so it was all hard to keep my mind in tact. Also hard to keep my pictures in tact, I will recap through broken panoramas. Let’s jump right in to Belizarama alongside our buddy Alan:

We all got to learn how to make tortillas, it was really fun. My whole time abroad I spent eating all the corn, as much corn as I could. My project was on corn. People there eat a lot of corn and it can be good or bad, good because it will keep a person full for cheap. Bad because it shouldn’t be the only thing a person survives on, but it is what is most affordable and accessible for many. It’s a weird balance of appreciation and many things, but I love corn. Look @ our lovely TA, Catherine, grinding up some corn. Requires many many muscles! I was very bad at making tortillas. The same women who showed us how to grind… corn, then showed us how to make pottery, I was also very bad.

We drove all around the country of Belize. Up down left right. Crossed all the way to the north near Yucatan in Mexico to a town called Orange Walk. It was filled with people who worked in the sugar industry and had many Belize-Chinese restaurants. There’s many unique pockets of immigrants and blends of language that I fell in love with. Anyway, there’s a new long slithery river, appropriately called the New River that we maneuvered our way through with the help of a lovely guide. He knew a lot about the local wildlife. He also drove and drifted really fast, I had a blast, some others… I don’t know.

Ever since we left Antigua for the lowlands, things have been quite warm. By warm, I mean extremely humid and hot and very very sweaty. Saw our last bits of Maya ruins at Lamanai after twirling through the New River for 2 hours. It was quite hard to process a lot of what we were standing over, even after the amount of readings and interactions we had with the land, grasping even just a bit felt rough. On the bright side, I learned how to crack tree nuts to extract palm oil while there. Don’t use limestone, use harder rocks. There is only limestone on the top, I learned that the hard way and had to make a trip all the way down and back up to crack a few.

We left there and then spent a couple days in the island of Caye Caulker. I zoned out for the majority of it and stuck my feet deep down in the sand, had bad iced coffee and focused on finishing my project. It was quite a nice way to wrap up the trip, relaxing. I didn’t take many pics, I took it slow. But here’s a snip snap from inside the room we presented in.

Felt like a proud dad listening to all these people I got to get close to present something they all felt a lot of love for. Leaving was tough, it felt like a weird end, but wow was it all a fun fun ride. I have nothing else to say, here’s a pic of my hand and a morphed Kendall. A see you later to all. bye bye Belizarama

 

Hola, hola! So, I guess to begin, I should introduce myself. I’ll keep it brief! My name’s Andres M. Garza, I was born and raised in Mexico, and I’m a senior anthropology student at the University of Texas. Currently, I’m in Guatemala doing a study abroad program over Maya art – but within the time I’m here with school, I’m also given a bit of leeway to explore and learn about subjects that interest me. As many people do, I love coffee. I think I know a little bit about coffee, or at least that’s what I thought. The one thing I did know is that Guatemala is responsible for some of the world’s most delicious coffee and that I had to try some. By some, I mean a lot.

I signed up for a coffee tasting workshop with a few of the friends I’ve made here. We took a quick shuttle few minutes out of the city of Antigua and arrived at this tiny little office in San Miguel Escobar. We were met by a super friendly and enthusiastic volunteer, Jonathan. He showed us the room he laid out with three different sets of coffee beans he self-roasted the day before. Roasting beans is extremely difficult to do on a small scale and requires expensive equipment and a lot of time. So, that was neat!

Now, I feel I can’t continue without mentioning this: as we walked into the office, we heard what sounded like raindrops falling on the thin-metal roof. Stuck my hand out into the open area of the building (most buildings are a blend of indoor and outdoor). No water wet my arm. After a few seconds we realized it was ash. Volcanic ash. Tiny little rocks fell, and continued to fall throughout our tasting. To clarify, the area we were at ended up being okay. The city was primarily covered with ash, but no casualties here.

Volcanic ash, Jonathan informed us, is part of what makes the soil in Guatemala so fertile and great for growing coffee. Though, not when it is in large quantities or as destructive as this eruption was. He began by giving us a sheet to circle and rank each different kind of coffee. Also, he explained to us the difference between Arabica coffee and Robusta. Arabica are high-quality beans grown specifically in the highlands. They are grown in an artisanal way, at an altitude over 600m, though he said that the higher they’re grown, the better they’ll taste. Robusta, well, they are what Arabica are not. And they are cheaper.

The beans were ground and we sampled them in small cups. We began by smelling each batch, describing their aroma. Jonathan gave us a list of descriptive words as we are “beginner” tasters and he was right that our vocabulary is not on par with professionals.

Following that, we slowly poured water from a kettle onto the ground beans to let them bloom. Blooming the beans, as Jonathan described, allows their aroma to strengthen, and we let that sit for some time. It really did look like it was alive, the water breathing and its body awake.

Apparently, professionals slurp their coffee. Each cup has its own spoon and there is a little washing cup with clean, hot water. This is to not cross-contaminate flavors. Slurping allows the flavors to be more present on one’s tongue, and I could see why they do that. We ranked their flavor profiles, notes, mouth-feel, and after-taste for each and scored them according to the chart he gave us. I did… pretty bad.

After that, Jonathan showed us a variety of brewing methods and allowed us to choose three to try. We were already feeling the caffeine at that point. He pulled out the Chemex, his personal favorite brewing method. It’s a slow-pour with 10 second intervals after certain quantities of water.

The taste was quite light, floral, and felt very spring-like. Each method was very precise, having us measure the amount of water and coffee, checking the temperature of the water, and timing each act of the process. To contrast this, he pulled out a French Press. This method is probably more recognizable to most of the American audience. The beans were significantly coarser so they wouldn’t must the coffee. The taste was heavier and darker — what one would think would be good for a gloomy winter morning.

Finally, the last method was an Aeropress. I personally hadn’t tried it before, but it was a method that brewed a single cup rather than a large amount like the rest. It was compact, strong, yet much smoother than the French Press because the beans were ground the finest possible. I wasn’t able to get any pictures of those since I was the one doing the process. But at that point, my friends kept passing me their leftover coffee and since my caffeine tolerance is high, I thought I could handle it. It was too much, and I was jittery.

We left soon after. Jonathan was so genuine in speaking about the organization De La Gente. It is an NGO that helps the farmers of Guatemala sell directly to consumer or to cafés rather than the process of selling to big buyers where their profits are fractioned. One thing he mentioned was that the farmers themselves had never tasted the extent of the quality of what they were producing, unable to self-roast the beans and unable to afford adequate brewing equipment. A goal of his is to get them to realize how beautiful the product they are growing is, while helping them financially and informing an audience about the process. I can’t thank him enough.

It was great!