When travelers enjoy a lovely cafe in Costa Rica, they are usually more occupied with whether it comes negro or con leche (black or with milk). They don’t so much worry if it will be yummy.
Coffee in Costa Rica goes as much with the territory as monkeys, surfers, and rain forests.
In boutique coffee shops back in the developed world, customers order fair trade coffee from Costa Rica to enjoy that posh feel good moment or remind themselves of the trip they took through the Osa Peninsula back in ’98.
What most purveyors of Costa Rican coffee, domestic or imported don’t realize is, how inextricably tied to the history of Costa Rica is the coffee bean. Before bananas and pineapples, it was the bean that connected Costa Rica’s farmers to the planet.
1700s
In 1779, shipped in from Ethiopia, a shipment of Arabic coffee arrived in Costa Rica to start a revolution. It wasn’t intended to start a political revolution, not intentionally, but one of farming.
At the behest of the heads of state at that time, Juan Mora Fernandez, and Braulio Carrillo, Costa Rican farmers grew these new coffee plants like weeds. They did well in the Costa Rican climate of the Central Valley.
At the time, Costa Rica was still a colony of Spain, at least from the perspective of the immigrants from Europe. The native people of Costa Rica weren’t so sure yet, but that’s another story for another time.
The native people had been growing cacao beans since before any Europeans arrived. Everyone loves cacao beans for one reason. Chocolate is yummy. The first humans liked cacao beans so much, in some places they traded it like currency.
Who needs coffee beans in a world that trades chocolate like currency? (Sounds like a Willy Wonka paradise to this writer.)
1800s
Despite the doubters, it didn’t take long for crop production of coffee beans to surpass cacao, but also tobacco, and sugar.
To be fair, coffee had some help. The Costa Rican government was literally handing out coffee plants for free in 1821.
In 1825, they even exempted coffee growers from paying taxes. By 1829, coffee production was on top. Bananas weren’t even part of the game yet. That would come in the last part of the 19th century.
Then, in 1832, the independent state of Costa Rica in the Federal Republic of Central America since 1821, started exporting their top crop through Panama.
The first big importer was Chile, but not because Chileans were dying to have a cup of Costa Rican cafe con leche. A company called, “Café Chileno de Valparaíso” intended to repackage and distribute those coffee beans.
By 1843, they’d exported the beans all the way to the United Kingdom. The Brits dug this new alternative to tea but wanted it at a better price, so they cut out the middleman and dealt directly with Costa Rica.
Money poured into Costa Rica to farm more of these amazing beans. After 60 plus years, an “overnight success” exploded the financial state of Costa Rica.
Coffee farmers made good money, took political positions or influenced those in politics. The money from coffee, combined with the emergent banana industry, funded railroads, and national buildings.
1900s
Other Latin American countries jumped on the coffee bandwagon. Columbia became a huge influence on coffee, but that didn’t stop coffee from growing in the Central Valley. Not even the revolution of 1917 or the political strife that followed could bump off the super crop of Costa Rica.
In 1955, money-grubbing politicians tried to squeeze the industry with an export tax, but by 1994 that tax was dead in the water. They abolished it.
The 1980s were a hard time for coffee in Costa Rica and elsewhere. World economies struggled. Coffee values dropped.
To protect themselves, the growers of Central America networked to create the Central American coffee retention plan. They would sell the product in installments to stabilize the market.
By the 1990s, a coffee craze that started in Seattle infected the United States and other nations with the endless need for coffee sold in 20 fluid ounce cups, otherwise known as Ventis. (Thanks, Starbucks.)
2000s
If the 90s drove coffee into the mainstream, the new millennium, especially in the last decade, has popularized the boutique coffee shop. (We even have one in Tamarindo, new this year.)
The big coffee brands still exist, like Starbucks, but the discerning aficionados prefer their coffee made in single-batches, each cup handcrafted by a barista.
In this new boutique world, where the beans come from, what sort of people those beans benefit, matters as much as the flavor from those beans. It’s the whole experience of the bean. It’s Costa Rica in your cup.
The last decade has also witnessed an equally strained phenomenon in Costa Rican coffee. Not in Guanacaste, Tamarindo’ s provincial home, but down in the Central Valley one can find Starbucks at the mall.
Starbucks buy beans wholesale from countries like Costa Rica, ships them to Seattle (or wherever they process them now), then ships them back to Costa Rica, selling the Costa Ricans their own coffee at ten times the cost.
The even crazier thing about this phenomena? When Starbucks first opened, Costa Ricans lined up with expats around the block to buy fancy Starbucks’ coffee.
Despite the great number of growers and influence of coffee beans on Costa Rica, exports from Costa Rica account for less than one percent of the world’s coffee. Some would say, it’s the only good percentage out there, because, you know… Costa Rican coffee rules.