I had already been in Costa Rica for a week by the time I rolled into San José to begin filming the next chapter of Journeys to the Source.

 

I had spent the previous days on the Pacific coast in Nosara, exploring and enjoying some much-needed downtime after a busy year of travelling and filming. Each morning I ran along long golden beaches where jungle spilt almost to the shoreline. I was there for a writing retreat, so my days were simple. Run. Write. Eat fresh food. Swim. Repeat.

 

By the time I left Nosara, I felt rested, recovered, and with a sense of re-imagination that inevitably comes from immersion in pristine nature. Aside from time and space to write and reflect, what struck me immediately about this slice of Costa Rican coastline was that it felt untouched and undefiled by unscrupulous development that has blighted so many tropical shores worldwide. This was different. This was protected land.

 

There were no great walls lining the beaches, no sprawling resorts fighting for the shoreline. Costa Rica’s strong commitment to conservation was visible from my first morning run. I passed signs that read, “Área protegida” (Protected area) and “Protejamos nuestras playas” (Let’s protect our beaches). Forests crowded the edges of towns. Wildlife appeared everywhere. Nature was abundant. Human presence and infrastructure snaked around the edges of the environment, in harmony with nature.

 

When it came time to leave Nosara, I boarded a tiny propeller plane back to San José and discovered I was the only passenger. From the window, Costa Rica stretched beneath me in a thick, tropical blanket of green. Verdant hills rolled towards the horizon, cut by rivers and dotted with settlements, while volcanoes pierced the banks of cloud. After a week experiencing the country at ground level, I could finally appreciate it from above.

 

San José brought me abruptly back to Earth. The capital felt raw and energetic after the tranquillity of the coast. I met up with Rüdiger Freytag, Bacha Coffee’s Head of Coffee Procurement and Production. The following morning we piled into a 4x4 and began climbing towards the volcanic highlands. Our destination was Volcán Azul, where a family has been growing coffee for seven generations.

 

The farm sits on the slopes of Poás Volcano, a great stratovolcano rising above Costa Rica’s central highlands. Its crater contains an acidic turquoise lagoon, and great plumes of white vapour drift from its interior. Volcanic soils, altitude, cool air, forest and moisture combine to create conditions in which Arabica coffee can flourish. This was where we would spend the coming days.

 

We stayed in a small family-run guesthouse in the mountains. Mornings began with fruit, breakfast, and inevitably, some of the world’s finest coffee. Then we would load the vehicles with equipment and head out to film. I have spent much of my career documenting conservation, so I arrived particularly interested in the relationship between agriculture and the natural world. Documenting coffee has increasingly become part of that journey for me through making these films.

The first thing that struck me at Volcán Azul was how little it looked like a tract of land dedicated to agriculture. One of the farmers who manages Volcán Azul with his family explained that more than 60 per cent of their wider landholdings are dedicated to conservation. 

At Volcán Azul itself, around 220 of the farm’s 300 hectares are forest. The family has been growing and exporting coffee for almost two centuries. He is the seventh generation on his father’s side. His children represent the eighth.

 

 

The processing of coffee at Volcán Azul was fascinating to watch. Everything moved with a quiet precision.

 

We followed ripe cherries from the moment they were plucked from the trees. They were collected, weighed and transported by tractor down through the farm. At the mill, another sequence began. Cherries were sorted and processed. Beans moved through washing stations and onto drying areas. Honey-processed coffees retained part of the fruit’s sticky mucilage before drying. Other coffees were fully washed. Every decision eventually appeared somewhere in the cup.

 

Over the course of the week, we filmed the entire journey of these coffees.

 

We walked the volcanic slopes. We tasted cherries straight from the branches. We watched tractors carrying the harvest through the farm. We filmed washing, honey processing and drying. Finally, we followed the coffee to the cupping table, where Rüdiger and the farmers tasted the results together.

 

Somewhere during all of this, the phrase pura vida began to make more sense to me. You hear it everywhere in Costa Rica. It can mean hello, goodbye, everything is good, enjoy life. Spend enough time there, and it starts escaping any useful translation.

 

At Volcán Azul, I began to recognise it as an attitude. I saw it around the family table. In the patience required to grow coffee at altitude. In the decision to leave hundreds of hectares of forest standing. In the workers moving through the harvest with practised ease. In the willingness to accept a smaller yield from a coffee tree when the remaining cherries could offer greater quality.