Have you ever had a freshly plucked coffee bean thrown at you? How about throwing dozens of coffee beans at others? That possibility seems a little crazy, but when you're young and you pass through coffee plantations without much supervision it may become a reality. In fact, it is part of one of my childhood memories. Please stay to explain.

I was about 10 years old. With some frequency we used to visit a river about an hour's drive into the mountains. The first few times we were taken by other young and older people who had been living in the area longer and knew the way. When we were able to fend for ourselves, my immediate family used to take our distant family when they came to visit. Much of the way we had to cross an extensive hacienda full of coffee plants. But I will refer to one of those early trips with the young locals.

I guess we would be in the month of September or October, when the coffee beans have almost reached their final size and we only have to wait for them to ripen in the months of November and December to pick them. We were on our way back in the afternoon. After bathing in the river and laughing a lot, it is normal that we all come back a little tired and as if "on autopilot", with a reduced state of alertness. In those moments someone may be left behind and few would notice. Or perhaps a group may get ahead of the others and go unnoticed. The latter was just what happened to some of the older youth in the group.

Most of us didn't notice this absence, but we kept walking. We kept listening to stories, laughing about what had happened while we were on the river, what we planned to do when we arrived, what we wanted to eat.... Then it happened!

We heard what sounded like a war cry from people jumping on us from the coffee plants on the side of the road as we felt something small hit our bodies and leave us with a stabbing pain. In a matter of micro seconds we are deciphering what is happening:

The people who jumped out of the coffee plants like apes were the older youths who a few minutes ago had stepped forward unnoticed. What they were throwing at us were not buckshot: they were green coffee beans, large and abundant. And clearly their intention was to scare us so that we could feel on our skin how it hurts to be hit by a green coffee bean. The beans hit our legs, arms and face. As you may know, when they are at that size they have a little pointy bump in the middle, and you may also be left with a piece of branch. Both of these things can break your skin when they hit you.

So it was a time of screaming, laughing, pain, pain, fright, excitement, confusion... and then calm and claims. Just thinking about it now, if the owners of those places had seen us they would have been very angry about our behavior and the handling of some of their plants. What a shame! So those youngsters got a few scoldings from the adults present.

But it didn't end there. No sooner had we walked a little further than another group of young men had imitated the previous one, hid inside the plants and ambushed the group of hikers again. Their ammunition: green coffee beans. What a disaster! The younger ones had no choice but to run down the trail as we made it through the "crossfire" and managed to get away to safety.

That afternoon I can say that I survived three green coffee bean ambushes. Walking through that area again was never the same. We had learned our lesson: you have to be more careful and watch out that no one gets separated from the group, and also look around the trail frequently to spot if someone wants to play a practical joke.

Just imagine: how many cups of coffee were not drunk because of these pranks! But the guys aren't going to be looking out for that. They just wanted to have some fun. Obviously, that won't be the best use we can make of those beans. Better to leave them on the plant, watch them ripen, and let them go straight to the roaster for processing. In the cover image you can see a type of coffee bean that is grown in this area, and it is yellow in color. The plant is not very tall and a single plant can produce several kilos of beans.

The next coffee ambush I want to witness is that while walking down a street someone suddenly appears and says: "Adrian, what are you doing here? Come on over, let's have an espresso together - I'll pick up the tab!" I think I can survive that one too...