Seventy kilos doesn’t sound like much until you’ve carried one (if you can), about the weight of a fully grown adult. If you’re next to someone, try lifting them, setting them down, then lifting them again. Now imagine doing that for ten or twelve hours a day under the sun at an altitude that leaves most of us sea level dwellers out of breath after a short walk or a flight of stairs. Almost every coffee we drink is picked, dried and hauled by people whose names we rarely hear but whose labour we taste every morning. Have some respect. Think about them next time you’ve got a minute to sit and enjoy your coffee and don’t complain about the price.
At Finca La Fuente she’s the quiet engine of the farm. She turns homegrown ingredients into meals that fuel early mornings and long harvest days.
When she’s not behind the stove she’s sweeping floors, washing clothes, keeping the house in order, and making sure everyone has what they need.
On most farms I’ve visited there’s a domestic worker or a small team doing this work. It’s constant, often unseen, but completely crucial.
We rode up winding mountain roads through the rain for hours to reach this remote trapiche, a traditional sugarcane mill.
I was not in a good way having drunk some gnarly water the day before but luckily Guarapo (freshly pressed sugarcane juice) is viewed as medicinal, so in hail mary fashion I drank a lot. I can't tell you if it fixed me, I still felt like death but it was yummy, didn't hurt my tummy or make me feel funny.
Anyway....
The way Panela is made hasn’t changed much over the last hundred years or so. The small motorbike engine powering the rollers looked newish, but the massive stone cauldrons have been around for generations.
In this photo an elder stands over the steaming cauldron, washing the bubbling Guarapo with leaves of Guaco, a wild vine that snakes across the mountainsides. Often dismissed as a weed, this plant quietly does its work, helping purify the liquid and lending a subtle, herbal aroma to the Panela.
SPAGYRIC IS RAD.
In Costa Rica, more and more coffee is moving through small, farm-based mills. The rise of micromills came as a reaction to collapsing prices, a way for farmers to fight back. Some built their own mills. At first it was survival. Then it became something else.
A micromill isn’t just machinery. It’s a family or community deciding how their coffee should taste, how it travels beyond the farm. No more anonymous cherries sent to the big mills for next to nothing. Now each lot has a voice. Valleys, slopes, small plots, all different, all unique. Buyers began to listen. They paid more. Farmers earned not by scale, but by expression.
@chrisbrownless wanted more shots of @horsemfg ’s XS650
So here’s the paint job.
Arguably Dolly’s boldest feature 💅🏻
Not shot on film but the other one was and I wanted some consistency.
Yamaha XS650 built by @horsemfg
After finishing the project I shot this on film for James and then forgot to develop the roll for the better part of a year maybe even two.
I've got pretty much the whole project shot from start to finish so you might end up seeing it again soon.
📷: Nikon F2A
🎞️: @kodak Gold200
