While Costa Rica's main exports today are optical, photographic, technical and medical devices, the country's best-known exports are probably fruits (pineapples, mangoes, bananas) and coffee.
Which is more important to you? I know that when I wake up to my alarm every morning, I don't crave medical devices, or even a banana. I want my coffee! Surprisingly, coffee is not one of Costa Rica's main exports. Actually! In fact, in 2022, coffee, grouped in export statistics together with tea and spices, represented (as a group) only 2.5% of total exports. However, given the quality of Costa Rican coffee, it is not surprising that most consider it one of the main exported products.
In the 2022-23 marketing year, Costa Rica produced 1.41 million 60-kilogram bags of coffee, or approximately 186 million pounds of coffee. In the San José area, you'll see tours of the Café Britt plantation or the Hacienda Alsacia Starbucks Coffee Farm, where corporations grow large volumes of coffee, primarily for export.
Near Uvita, in San Luis Morete, is Café Don Emilio, a small and charming family-run coffee farm where much of the work is done by hand and that which requires machinery can be seen carried out in largely unrecognizable contraptions, Mostly manufactured with spare parts. out of bicycles, washing machines and more.
The drive through winding mountain roads is really what turns this simple tour and coffee demonstration into an adventure. There's a bridge where you're probably wondering, "Am I supposed to cross that bridge?" Yes you are.
The feeling at Cafe Don Emilio is not that of visiting a factory for a large group tour. This is more like visiting a family friend and being shown where they live and work. Deiner, the tour guide, showed us where and how coffee is grown, the pests they fight, how they treat them, and how they separate the outer shell of the coffee cherry once harvested. They use the natural mountain breeze to blow away the chaff while pouring beans from one bucket to another.
The coffee is then roasted in a custom-made coffee roaster and comes out smelling heavenly. Who can resist a perfect cup of coffee made from beans roasted in front of you on the coffee plantation?
If you are a coffee lover, a visit to Café Don Emilio can be a perfect excursion away from the beaches and up to some higher elevations. The mountain views, often taking in wispy clouds making their way over the peaks, provide the perfect backdrop for the great memories you'll make here.
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