Sugar comes in 1lb packets – right? Not always. Here it comes in blocks of delicious caramel coloured dulce wrapped in cane leaves and tied with twine made from banana leaf. It’s commonly used to make agua dulce a warm comfort drink for the cold evenings, but it can be used the same as sugar in recipes.

Dulce is produced from sugar cane and made locally in what is called a trapiche. The trapiche is a sugar mill that extracts the sugary sap from the cane which is then boiled for hours and hours to produce dulce. Last week I visited the trapiche and found a fascinating part of Costa Rican history alive and thriving today.

At 5a.m. my partner is already rounding up the two oxen (bueyes) who will drive the mill. The great black beasts are moody – some days they come willingly and work the two to three hours needed to extract enough cane juice for the day; other times they toss their great horned heads and fight every inch. At the ancient trapiche they are leashed to a wooden halter and they walk a circle around the sugar extractor while the cane is pushed through and the juice flows into a receptacle at an amazing rate.

The existing mill was bought and installed in the 70’s, though the structure of the trapiche, made of local wood and thatched, dates back to 1948 when my partner’s father, Blas Monge and a neighbour Raphael Vargas, built the trapiche. More amazing are the moldes and canoas (moulds and literally canoes or containers for the dulce when it is ready for the moulds) that are over 60 years old.

The sugar is heated by a vast oven below the cauldron that gets up to 4000 degrees – fired by wood and cane waste, which must be kept at the same temperature all day. Wood is harvested from fallen trees or prunings, and the cane waste not used for the fire can be fed to the oxen, or horses and goats, or used to make dry pathways when there is rain.

The whole process lasts about 10 hours, but can take longer if the outside temperature drops and the sugar takes longer to boil to the right consistency. Along the way the sugar changes from one state to another – there is espuma literally foam that floats on the surface of the sugar. Everyone loves to eats this frothy sugar, almost as much as they enjoy drinking pure cane juice and eating the dulce straight from the cauldron! (Please don’t tell your dentist!) Like all sugar products the dulce reaches ‘crack’ – a temperature where it is brittle and delicious to suck like hard toffee. And of course we all enjoy this too. But the process is far from complete – hours more of boiling is needed to reduce the liquid to the granular consistency needed for sale as dulce – hours of steam and heat and back breaking stirring.

At about 3pm the dulce is ready. It is first poured into the canoa to cool and solidify a little, and then is poured with a pan into the moulds that look the same size as flower pots. In less than 5 minutes the dulce can be popped out of the moulds on to a fresh bed of cane, then wrapped in packs of 4 in cane leaves and tied with the banana twine. The dulce is sold at the pulperia (local store) or in person to regular customers. I come home with 4 fresh batches to make peanut brittle and coconut ice. Who said I had a sweet tooth?

A visit to the trapiche is a glimpse into Costa Rica’s past. Most of the ox-driven trapiches have disappeared and the techniques involved in hand-making dulce along with them. If you visit San Gerardo and want to tour the trapiche, savor a little dulce or take home some locally made candy let me know via the Contact Form on this website. We would be delighted to share the history, and the sweetness, with you too!