Golden Bean

Coffee came to Costa Rica from France. As a sign of sustainability, Costa Ricans can use the same coffee plants for many years. The harvest season for coffee is from December to about January. The average lifespan of a coffee plant is about five years. It takes about three years for the coffee plant to mature and grow the coffee fruit. The time to pick the coffee bean is when the skin is a dark red. If you pick it too late the coffee bean will taste bitter. To sort out the bad coffee from the good, coffee producers put them in water and the coffee that sinks is the good coffee. The bad coffee beans float.
The dictator Braulio Carrillo introduced coffee in the early 1830s. Costa Rica needed a cash crop to sustain it and coffee became the ideal choice. The coffee plants were handed out to the poor and tax breaks and free land were offered to any Ticos that wanted to grow the crop. After independence from Spain, Britain became the biggest purchaser of Costa Rica's "golden bean."
Coffee was also responsible for underdevelopment in Costa Rica. The crop was practically the only export from 1840 to 1890 and productions of basic foods fell because coffee plants took up the available land. The country became dependent of imports, which left it vulnerable to price shocks in the future.