Cafe Britt is Everywhere!

As I have been traveling around Costa Rica the one thing that I see pretty much everywhere is Cafe Britt coffee. You can buy it in grocery stores, tourist shops; I even saw it in clothing stores. My host family drinks 1804 coffee, it´s another big coffee I see around. Although coffee is still an important drink, many Costa Ricans prefer herbal teas. According to Culture Shock, Ticos still have one of the highest per capita caffeine consumption rates in the world. I can easily get coffee at anytime. Coffee dispensers can be found in banks, supermarkets, school, etc.
Coffee is used as one of the many remedies that Costa Ricans have. Coffee is used as a migraine cure and it apparently opens up constricted blood vessels in the brain.
According to Cafe Britt, a cup of coffee can last 20 minutes and should never be re-heated. Although this is a sin to Cafe Britt, many Ticos re-heat their coffee and even use instant coffee. There are no foreign brands of coffee sold in Costa Rica according to Culture Shock. Coffee in Costa Rica often tastes great because it is generally grown over a mile above sea level, where low air pressure results in hard beans. Soft beans burn when roasted.
Costa Ricans almost entirely rely on Nicaraguan`s to work for them. Young Ticos are no longer interested in the hard work and low pay.
The process of red coffee berry picking takes a week: pressing, peeling, fermenting, sun drying, raking and roasting at about 250 degrees Celsius. The longest roast is called a French roast.

Coffee is Everywhere or Not

The role of coffee in Costa Rica has changed dramatically. Fifty years ago coffee was so recognized that tearing out a coffee field would have devastated the country. According to Culture Shock when coffee prices rose after WW II, dozens of counties rushed to plant coffee, the worlds second biggest dollar commodity after oil. Soon supply was greater than demand and price fell dramatically, which they never really have recovered.
Now, many farmers say that the cost of producing coffee is more than what they earn from it. Hundreds of fields have been ripped out. Today, coffee only covers 2% of the land and what used to be rich coffee land is now cemented over because of the rapid population growth. This large cemented area is where I live half of the time, San Jose.
Some other former coffee fields have been planted over with higher earning ornamental plants and ferns. This diversifies the economy.

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.

Daisy's Coffee

stray dog
old coffee sun drying
Diasy´s coffee shop sign
huge bug

Daisy´s coffee plants
scenery walking up the mountain


The picture I was talking when the guy tapped me

coffee

hydrangeas


roaster

our bus drove up most of the way and this is where we got out to walk.


huge flying ant

According to the Global Exchange website, the U.S. consumes 1/5 of the entire world's coffee, making it the largest consumer in the world. Today we went to Daisy Rodriguez Coffee farm and Del Cafe Tal, her coffee shop. Recently, Daisy's coffee was awarded the best coffee in Costa Rica, number two in Latin America. Her coffee is so good that she can sell it for $15 a pound. I bought a pound for $10 today, discount! We all got a taste and I thought it was very delicious. Her coffee plantation was gorgeous, but it was a long walk, uphill, to the top of the mountain, where her plantation was. There were hydrangeas lining the side of the road some of the way. A very beautiful blue. Jamie asked Daisy if she had the hydrangeas to test the acidity of the soil, but she said that her neighbor planted them and really didn't know what he was talking about. They call hydrangeas something else and didn't know the English translation.
Daisy has seven employees year round, and 70 (from Nicaragua) around picking season which starts in December. Nicaraguans in Costa Rica have the same connotation as Mexicans to the U.S. They are harder workers and cheaper labor. She also has a herd of stray dogs, very cute and friendly dogs.

Even though Daisy has a small coffee farm, that she bought 10 years ago, she has quality coffee and does not receive prices for her coffee that are less than the cost of production like other small plantations.

Unfortunately she was not able to maintain an organic coffee plantation that she tried out for four years. She quit her organic plantation three years ago.

Fair Trade assures consumers that the coffee we drink was purchased under fair conditions. According the Global Exchange website, to be Fair Trade certified, an importer must meet stringent international criteria; paying a minimum price per pound of $1.26. This is supposed to provide technical assistance such as help transitioning to organic farming. Fair Trade can only help companies that agree to the criterion, which mostly means larger coffee dealers like Starbucks.

The coffee plants, today, had white flower blooms and some had the red berries. We picked a few of the berries, opened them up, and found white coffee beans. I put the bean in my mouth and it didn't taste anything like a coffee beans, it was actually kind of slimy, but still hard. I have some gorgeous pictures that I will hopefully be able to post once I figure out my camera situation.

The weirdest thing happened to me while I was taking pictures of the mountains. I was standing on the sidewalk, close to a driveway and as I was taking the picture a car hit me! (it tapped me). Why couldn't the guy just honk his horn if I was in his way, which I don' t think I was. He could have gotten into the drive without hitting me! No bumps or bruises, just a weird experience.