Among the aspects that make Costa Rica well known is its smooth flavored, quality coffee. Costa Rica has won numerous awards in the international coffee competition.
The areas surrounding the Tilaran mountain range, San Jose, and Monteverde bring out the real image of Costa Rica coffee, from their ideal weather for coffee farming.
A combination of the fertile volcanic soil, steady rainfall, and high altitudes of the cool climate regions make Costa Rica an ideal zone for the cultivation of coffee.
Costa Rica produces arabica coffee beans solely, since 1989, due to quality control. The fame of Costa Rica’s coffee has prompted visitors, local and foreign, to indulge in coffee tours, in a quest to partake knowledge about the small nation’s secret towards successful coffee farming.
Each coffee plantation has its unique features and ways of operations. Here is one of the most famous coffee tours in Costa Rica.
The Café Britt Tours
Since 1991, Café Britt has offered a classic tour for all coffee lovers. Visitors learn about sustainable coffee growing and production practices, as well as its unmatchable role in Costa Rica’s economic and social spheres.
Café Britt offers 5 tours for its visitors. One may choose between the Classic Coffee, Coffee & Waterfalls, Coffee & Wildlife, Coffee & Adventure, and Coffee Lovers Tours.
Each tour varies in length and the number/kinds of activities to participate in. We will provide a quick preview of what happens on one of them, the classic coffee tour.
A Visit To The Plantation
Café Britt’s Classic Coffee Tour starts with an introduction about how the quality coffee beans are grown, just like any tour would.
Here, visitors learn about the lifecycle of the coffee plant, which includes the growing and maintenance of the crop. Visitors walk around the coffee fields to learn first-hand information, through observation and touch of the coffee cherries in person.
A Theatrical Presentation By The Guides
Café Britt’s Classic Coffee Tour stands as unique amongst all Costa Rican coffee tours, due to the perfectly polished art of presentation by guides on the tour.
Its guides are dressed in traditional attires, and will crack jokes regularly, in between the process of presenting to the visitors, all done theatrically.
Visitors are taken to a large theatre, where they watch a short movie about Costa Rica’s coffee industry history, after the visit to the plantation.
The film enlightens the visitors on the different areas where coffee is grown, giving reasons why the locations were suitable for coffee farming, as well as the success of the coffee industry in Costa Rica.
This section of the tour is also theatrical, where the guides will jump on stage and interact with the movie. The guides throw over-sized burlap coffee bags into a small coffee truck, thus entertaining the audience.
A Taste Of The Traditional Brewing Of Coffee
Visitors are guided to the next stopover of the tour, where volunteers brought by the guide help in the brewing of the coffee. They use a wooden contraption with a cotton cloth, known as the Chorreador.
In this stage, the visitors also learn about the French Press methods, as well as the drawbacks of the regular old drip coffee pots.
End The Tour With A Visit To The Gift Shop
After hours of learning about coffee production and maintenance, the visitors have a chance to give their tongue’s taste buds an experience of a lifetime, with some freshly brewed java. The visitors also have an opportunity to purchase some fresh coffee bags for a souvenir.
Conclusion
A visit to Café Britt for the Classic Coffee Tour is a one and half hour lifetime experience, where one has the privilege to see how quality coffee beans are grown, as well as harvested, on a sustainable plantation.
Visitors also acquire insight on how the coffee beans are roasted, graded, and packaged into quality coffee, ready for consumption. A coffee tour to Café Britt remains to be a lifetime Costa Rican tropical adventure.
