History of Costa Rican Coffee
Coffee came to Costa Rica in the last decade of the eighteenth century. Its arrival on national scene was discrete, but definitive. Slowly and with perseverance that great works demand, coffe growing expanded over the high lands of the Central Valley. The brotherhood of coffee farmers, both large and small, formed the basis that allowed Costa Rica to become the first Central American country to establish coffee as an industry.
Our first export was to Colombia. Those lonely sacks that crossed our borders in 1820, became the ground breaking activity which, from that moment on, changed the course of our lives. By 1823, we were already exporting quality coffee to Chile. There, it was repackaged for sale to England under the name of "Café Chileno de Valparaíso".
It was in 1854, when a visionary group of local exporters undertook the complex task of exporting coffee directly to London. In this they were helped by the cooperation of William Le Lacheur Lyon, captain of the English ship "Monarch", who transported several one hundred our coffee into the "grain of gold" we know today.
The growing and commercialization of the coffee changed the face of that humble, one time colony that dozed lethargically in corner of the Empire. Our country was modernized. The young Costa Rican intellectuals could now continue their post secondary studies in England and come back as doctors, engineers and entrepreneurs, contributing to the improvement of the life style of all Costa Ricans.
The economic bounty that coffee production and commercialization brought allowed us to build the first access to the Atlantic in 1890. Seven years later, the awed inhabitants of the capital city of San José were able to attend the memorable inauguration of the National Theater, cradle of Costa Rica culture and monument to the forsight of the first coffee farmers. Since tyen Costa Ricans know that coffee and the activities forged around it, set the fundation of what we proudly display as our today
Coffee production began in 1779 in the Meseta Central, an area with near perfect soil and climate conditions for this type of plantation. A native plant of Ethiopia, the blend introduced to Costa Rica had been first cultivated in Saudi Arabia and is therefore known as the Arabica. Coffee growing soon surpassed cacao, tobacco, and sugar in importance and by 1829 it had become the major source of foreign revenue.
The largest growing areas are San Jose, Alajuela, Heredia, Puntarenas, and Cartago provinces. Costa Rican coffee is high in both quality and caffeine content and it is often blended with inferior varieties. Local coffee, set at a much lower government-controlled local price, is tinted to prevent diversion to the export market. Coffee production depends upon cheap, seasonal labor, most of which has come from Nicaraguan immigrants that cross over due to Costa Rica's low unemployment and higher standard of living . The hand picked berries are trucked to beneficios (processing plants), where they are scrubbed and washed to remove the fruity outer layer and dissolve the gummy substance surrounding the bean. the pulp is returned to the slopes as fertilizer and was sometimes dumped in rivers, until a recent enforcement of health laws put a stop to most of it. The moist beans are then laid out to dry in the sun in the traditional manner. The leather skin of the bean is then removed by machine-rubbing, and the beans are sorted according to size and shape before being vacuum-sealed to retain the fragrance and slight touch of acidity characteristic of the great vintages of Costa Rica.
A major blight struck in 1983. As with any plantation crop, one of the major drawbacks is that the income is subject to price fluctuations. When the world coffee prices plunged 40% after the collapse of the world quota cartel system, Costa Rica joined Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador in 1989 to create a coffee retention plan. Under the plan, their coffee is sold in installments so as to ensure price stability. The export tax on coffee, first initiated in 1955, was abolished in 1994.
It is curious to note that most of the coffee plantations that surrounded the Great Metropolitan Area (San Jose, Cartago, Alajuela, Heredia) are rapidly disappearing as rising real estate prices push the farmers to sell, giving in to the expansion of the urban cities into the traditionally agricultural countryside.
It is curious to note that most of the coffee plantations that surrounded the Great Metropolitan Area (San Jose, Cartago, Alajuela, Heredia) are rapidly disappearing as rising real estate prices push the farmers to sell, giving in to the expansion of the urban cities into the traditionally agricultural countryside.
THERES ANY COFFEE BEAN IN COLOMBIA?
Colombia is a huge coffee producer, we have a lot of coffee farms and also we have the best queality in the market. Produce coffee is one of the principal economy activity in colombia.
