Coffee, anyone?

Coffee....

Morning delight.....

Midday necessity.....

...and I am a coffee rookie.

In October of 2012, a client (who became a friend) and I met in Guadalajara to do some shopping for their new home in San Carlos, MX that my husband had just built. What fun we had!! The mornings were cold-ish, and before hitting the stores, we would walk a couple of blocks to a restaurant to eat breakfast.  I wanted something hot to drink, but just didn't feel like tea or hot chocolate.  In Mexico, they often put cinnamon in the coffee, so....I thought I'd try it.  With some Stevia, of course, that I'd brought along.  It was good, real good.

Rincon del Sol.  Best little breakfast place in Tonala, Guadalajara, MX

After returning home, I began to try various brands and types of coffee.  In our part of Mexico, at least, the most common way to buy coffee is instant...shelves upon shelves of instant.

Well that just wouldn't do.

So...whenever we would go to the US, Trader Joe's had a huge selection, and I started trying them out.  I was hooked.

Having a fresh brewed cup of coffee at Jansen's Coffee Farm, Volcan, Panama.

One of the delightful things about living in Central America is that there is an abundance of coffee....because, they grow it here.  Fresher than anything you've ever had.  Many high end coffee stores buy their coffee from the growers here and in Costa Rica.  They buy the beans we can have all the time, cheapen them up with something else, then charge big prices for their so called fancy blends.

We get to buy the best beans, much fresher, for much less dinero.

While we have huge varieties of coffee available here, the thing that interests me is they way they sell it.  so...I took some pics the other day while in the grocery store.

 Many varieties available...in every grocery store, and even in the gift shops.  You can get a kilo of Ruiz Coffee (That's 2.2 lbs) - a brand used by Starbucks that they mix with inferior beans and sell at a higher price for about 8 bucks.  When we go to Costa Rica, we can get good quality coffee for about $4-$5 a kilo.

We always bring some home. 

 Individual packets, for basically one or two cups of coffee are available everywhere....

...in various brands....

 Duran is the main coffee you will see here in Panama (All the malls have Duran kiosks in them.)..... actually kind of the low end coffee...but is better quality that most every coffee you can find in the USA.  And they make all the products to go with it.

Wondering how they make those little packets of coffee???

 These little guys (above photo) are basically a cloth strainer.  Put the coffee in, hold it over a cup or a pot, and pour hot water through to steep it.  I guess you could just keep pouring until it starts getting really light colored.

Another interesting thing is how the Panamanians drink their coffee.  You have to order it 'negro' (Black) if you don't want all the stuff in it.

They love to use Evaporated milk and lots of sugar....in case it's not sweet enough.

And they like it strong.

Even the kids drink coffee. No wonder...I imagine that tastes a lot like a hot candied drink!

I think I'll keep making mine just black with Stevia.

Birds, birds, birds.....

Ok. I know.  It's been a reeeeally long time since I've added anything to this blog.  We've pretty much been doing life, and when you get into a routine, there's not a whole lot to share.  I'll try to do better.

Every morning...well, pretty much all day...we hear the sounds of birds in the trees.  All with different  calls. Some singing, some squawking, some cackling, some tweeting.  They are all different and very distinctive...some much prettier than others.  Oh, I just heard some whistling, too.

And lets not forget the abundance of roosters ....  giving their wake-up calls at all hours of the day.  Pretty sure they don't have any built in clocks.

Until recently though, I had no idea just how many birds are in Panama.  There is an extraordinary wealth of birds here. 976. Yes, just under a thousand species!  In a country the size of South Carolina!

They say that part of the reason is that this is as far as many birds from the north can go, and this is as far as many birds from the south can go.  This is the "bridge" from North to South America and visa versa.

And we get the benefit of that.

 One day we looked out the window and saw that the orange tree was FULL of these beauties.

 And....One evening, about 6:00, we were having dinner on the patio and saw 5 or 6 of these toucans in the trees just beyond where we eat.  We've never seen them before, and haven't seen them since.

We have a whole bunch of these who come visit our feeder everyday...and try to stay out of Bandido's reach.

 We see these all the time....especially in the mornings, while having breakfast on the patio...perched on a line, or in the mango tree, or flitting around here and there.

 We've seen hundreds of these as they leave one tree and head to another....like a colorful symphony.

And these...I can hardly describe the depth of color.  The red and black both are like deep rich velvet.

This is only a very few of the birds here, and many of these we have pictures of, we've never seen, except at the zoo (yes, we have a zoo).  This would be a bird watcher's paradise, for sure.

I've often wondered which sound we're hearing belongs to which bird....then noticed the other day, that our nephews' and nieces' monkey (Mona) chirps like a bird.

Hmmm....Wonder what we're missing....