Whether you prefer a straight shot of tangy espresso or a few sweet sips of a blended coffee drink, chances are you love coffee.
Not only is this bittersweet drink one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world, its active ingredient — caffeine — is the most popular psychoactive drug.
We recently visited a coffee farm in Costa Rica, one of the world's most desirable locations for growing and harvesting the crop.
The coffee plants here, just like those across the globe, face a big challenge: All of them are sourced from just a handful of original Ethiopian plants, meaning they're genetically similar and highly vulnerable to climate change.
Take a walk through a Costa Rican coffee farm and see how the threatened but valued crop goes from berry to brew:
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Our drive to a coffee farm called Cafe Monteverde took us up a mountain on a dirt road for about an hour and a half. On our way, we got some breathtaking views of the area's rugged, hilly terrain and gorgeous forest cover.
The region of Monteverde, where a lot of Costa Rica's coffee is grown, is a misty, cloud-enshrined area about three hours from San Jose, the capital. The humid, shady climate is ideal for growing coffee plants, but the drive to reach it can be a challenge if you're not familiar with the roads.
My partner (right) and I were introduced to the farm by Felix Salazar (left), a nature photographer born and raised in Monteverde who also works on the farm and gives tours in his free time. Felix walked us through the rolling green fields where the coffee for Cafe Monteverde is grown.
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