It is the 1980s. I travel with my girlfriend by boom bus from Santa Cruz in eastern Bolivia to Corumba Brazil. In Bolivia, I first visited coffee plantations in Caranavi, on coffee research for my father. It is tropically hot in the bus. Then the trip gets exciting including crossing a river over a log bridge. Night falls and we drive on and on. At a roadblock deep in the night, our bus is stopped. Everyone is sleepy. Men in uniform look intently at passports and our faces. Then they only take our passports and do not return. The bus has to wait and wait.

Half an hour later they return. We have to get off with our luggage. We are put in a police car and watch the bus leave. Without us.

It is dark. The policemen talk from a distance. What are they planning to do with us? Then suddenly they get into our car and we drive away. They don't speak English and we don't speak Portuguese. We arrive in a small town and stop at a small police station. The man unlocks the door; we have to go in. Our shoes have to come off and we have to take off our belts. We are put behind an open barred fence. It is like in a Lucky Luke comic strip. The door closes again and we are alone for the rest of the night. Early in the morning a rooster begins to crow, it gets light. At 7:30 a car stops, rattles the lock, the door opens and we are released by the police commissioner. He pours a cup of coffee, black and bitter. I long for my father Jacob Boot's Brazilian coffee beans. Then we are finally allowed to travel on.

As a coffee roaster we travel to the coffee countries ourselves to buy the finest coffee directly from the farmer. This includes Brazil for our adventurous Brazil Santos Espresso with exciting flavor notes of nuts, caramel and stone fruit. Are you up for the adventure? Visit the Koffie Winkel in Baarn or order this coffee of the month via bootkoffie.nl.

Recipe:
For espresso, we use the following recipe: 18 grams of coffee in the filter carrier (for a double espresso) with 44 grams of espresso in the cup. This with a brewing time of 25 seconds.