The origin of Costa Rican coffee beans boutique coffee

High-quality Costa Rican coffee is known as "extra-hard" and can be grown at altitudes above 1500 meters. Altitude has always been a problem for coffee growers. Coffee beans are better at higher altitudes, not only because higher altitudes increase the acidity of coffee beans and thus enhance flavor, but also because lower night temperatures at higher altitudes cause trees to grow slowly, thus making coffee beans more flavorful. In addition, due to the high altitude drop caused by sufficient rainfall, coffee tree growth is also very favorable. However, while there are many advantages to growing coffee at higher altitudes, the additional transportation costs associated with it must be taken into account, which may well make coffee production unprofitable. Costa Rican coffee has adopted new technologies to increase efficiency, including the use of "electric eyes" to select beans and identify beans of irregular size.

Tarasu is located south of the country's capital, San José, and is one of the country's most prized coffee plantations. La Minita Tarrazu coffee is locally famous but produced in limited quantities, about 72600 kilograms per year, grown on land called La Minita, owned by the last three generations of the McAlpine family in England. In fact, the land produces more than 450 tons of coffee per year. But Tara Sulamita is grown without artificial fertilizers or pesticides, and is harvested and picked entirely by hand, to avoid some of the damage done to the beans by air-jet sorting.

Other coffees worth mentioning are Juan Vinas (PR), H.Tournon, Windmill (SHB), Monte bello and Santa Rosa. Fine coffee is grown in Geredia and the Central Valley. Another striking coffee is Sarchi (one of the five towns that represent Costa Rica's "coffee route"), which grows on the slopes of Poas Volcano, 53 kilometers from San Jose. Saatchi was founded in 1949 and has 30770 hectares of land to grow sugar cane and coffee. The area is also known for its handicrafts, attracting tourists from all over the world.

The country's coffee industry, formerly controlled by Instituto del Café de Costa Rica (ICAFE), has been taken over by the Official Coffee Council (Oficina del Café). Among coffee exports, those deemed substandard are colored with blue vegetable dye before being recycled for domestic sale. Coffee consumed domestically (dyed blue or undyed) accounts for about 10% of total production, and local coffee consumption per capita is twice that of Italy or the United States.