Corner View - Bliss

CAYOS ZAPATILLO

PULAU KAPAS

PRAIA LOPES MENDES

Apart from the obvious bliss we share at certain moments with loved ones, there is a special kind of bliss that I feel when I am in paradise. For me paradise involves a voyage in a sailing boat to a deserted tropical island, where I can then snorkel in crystal clear waters with the rich marine life there. This has happened to me several times during my life. The first time was when I lived in a wooden house on stilts at the edge of the South China Sea. Opposite my house, a few miles offshore, was an idyllic desert island, called Pulau Kapas (Cotton Wool Island), which I could visit in a local fishing boat. This was my first time snorkeling in clear, warm, tropical waters, and the coral and marine life were stunningly beautiful. Island hopping in the Seychelles was another blissful experience, but, for me, Ilha Grande off the coast of Brazil is even more beautiful. There, you can be dropped off by a schooner and walk through the rainforest to what I consider to be the best beach in the world, Praia Lopes Mendes. I have had some wonderful times in the Caribbean, but the most idyllic desert island I have visited there is, without doubt, in Cayos Zapatillo off the coast of Panama. It is a picture perfect paradise. The most blissful experience I have ever had snorkeling, however, was on the reef near Caye Caulker in Belize, where after a beautiful trip in a schooner, I was able to swim with and touch sharks, stingrays and turtles, which was incredibly exciting and sheer bliss!

Corner View 6 - Coffee

The theme for this week's Corner View is coffee. Now, when you mention the word 'coffee', the first place people think of is Brazil. The coffee beans in the picture, which I will grind for my morning coffee tomorrow, are indeed from Brazil, but they have, in a way, returned home, because like most of the world's best coffee beans they are Coffea arabica and as the name suggests, they originally came from the Arabian peninsula, just over the border from here, in Yemen, where coffee was first cultivated more than a thousand years ago. Arab traders took these beans to Indonesia and East Africa hundreds of years later and eventually they were exported to Latin America.

Last summer I was in Panama and learned a lot more about coffee when I was given a guided tour of the Kotowa Coffee Estate by Dutch coffee farmer, Hans van der Vooren. The first and possibly most important thing is, don't buy coffee that's already been ground. Coffee not only loses its flavour and aroma very quickly, it also absorbs smells and tastes from its surroundings. So, for example if you fry bacon and eggs near ground coffee, that's what it will taste of. Also, for the same reason, you should keep your coffee beans in a vacuum-sealed container. When buying coffee beans, what should you look for? Well, they should have a uniform shape and size as this shows that they have been properly sorted and graded; bigger beans tend to be more expensive. And they should be 100% Arabica as that is the best variety. Why, you may wonder, do farmers bother growing any other variety? The reason is that Coffea arabica is not easy to grow and requires very specific conditions: warm mountain slopes with a minimum altitude of 1,500m and light shade, which is usually provided by surrounding trees. The other main variety, Robusta (Coffea canephora), which is the basis for most instant coffee, is far easier to grow and can tolerate direct sunlight.

Now, with regard to how the beans have been processed, Hans explained that you don't want them burnt too much. Light roast beans (the pale coloured ones) will retain the greatest bouquet of flavours. These complex natural flavours can range from citrus fruit to vanilla and chocolate. If they are poor quality beans, they will also have unpleasant bitter flavours present. So, the cheaper beans are roasted for longer to get rid of the bitterness. Dark roast beans are invariably poor quality which is why they needed to be roasted for so long. The worst culprits are the French roast beans. They are from the cheap Robusta variety and have been burnt almost to a cinder in order to eradicate their natural bitterness. Medium roast is indeed a happy medium as it will retain much of the original bouquet of flavours, yet at the same time not be too bitter.

Panamanian coffee is currently considered to be the best in the world. Based on price and results in international coffee-tasting competitions, the world's best coffees are Panama's Geisha, Jamaica's Blue Mountain, Hawaii's Kona, Indonesia's Kopi Luwak, Guatemala's El Injerto, Brazil's Fazenda Santa Ines, El Salvador's Los Planes, Island of St. Helena Coffee Co. and Rwanda Blue Bourbon. They are all Coffea arabica. A kilo of Geisha beans from Boquete can cost more than $200.

For those of you who haven't ground your own beans before, you don't need a mortar and pestle. There are lots of cheap, efficient electric coffee grinders available in the shops. I particularly like the Kenwood CG100.

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jane, ladybug-zen, bonnie, esti, sophie, cele, modsquad,

caitlin, joyce, ani, couturecoucou, kim, a day that is dessert, natsumi, epe, kaylovesvintage, trinsch, c.t.,jeannette, outi, schanett, ritva, dongdong, francesca, state of bliss, jennifer, dana, denise, cabrizette, bohemian girl, ruth, dianna, isabelle, amber, girl in the yellow shoes, mister e, janis, kari, jgy, jenna, skymring, elizabeth, audrey, allison, lise, cate, mon, victoria, crescent moon, erin, otli, amy, ida, caroline, lisa, dorte, kimmie, la lune dans le ciel, nicola, malo, vanessa, britta, virginia, april, rebecca, b

Counting Birds

You have probably heard the expression bird brain. In many ways, it’s a little unfair on birds. They are much better at finding their way around the earth than humans are. But, birds are no mathematical geniuses. In fact, they can only count up to two. How do we know this? Did I ask a parrot?

Stop and think for a moment. How could you discover the counting abilities of a bird? Don’t read on just yet if you think you can figure out a way to do it.

OK. You couldn’t, could you? Neither could I, but, scientists found a way. They pitched a tent at the edge of a lake. One man walked up to the lake and got inside the tent. The birds on the lake flew away and didn’t return until after he’d left the tent. Then two men walked up and went into the tent. One of them left, but the birds didn’t return. The second man left and the birds flew back. Next, three men got into the tent. The first left, but the birds stayed away. The second man left, leaving the third still inside the tent, but the birds flew back anyway because they couldn’t count beyond two.

Finally - now this is the really clever part - the third man shot three of the birds. They repeated this process for several weeks until incredibly the birds finally learned to count up to three. No, I just made that last bit up.

Now you know how to do it, you can conduct similar experiments with cockroaches, feral cats, Cape hunting dogs, Thomson’s gazelles, wildebeests, elephants and any other wild animals that take your fancy. Have fun and remember to wear the appropriate safety equipment.

PS I took that photo of a Rufous-tailed Hummingbird on the beautiful Bocas del Toro islands in Panama last year and, of course, I needed two other people to help me ;) Click on it if you want to see the bird actually counting the number two <>