Costa Rican coffee has substantial ties to the country’s culture and was first introduced around the end of the 1700s. Two companies, Café Britt and Doka Estate, have since become examples of the strong standard of quality that Costa Rica demands from its coffee producers. Café Britt is a world-renowned gourmet coffee brand and Doka Estate produces the coffee beans for various clients. However, most Costa Ricans don’t often drink coffee. Today, as we explored the coffee plantations at Doka Estate and Café Britt, we learned why this happens.

The major differences between Doka Estate and Café Britt is that Doka is known as a producer of coffee beans; they do everything from planting the coffee trees and cultivating those plants to picking the coffee cherries to shipping the final beans. Doka works with shipping the completely raw bean (unroasted) to its final destination across the globe.

On the other hand, Café Britt plays more of a manufacturer role in this industry’s supply chain. They buy their beans from hundreds of smaller farmers which allows them to get different distinctive tastes for each of their blends. So, with all of these different coffee companies and jobs in the coffee industry, why don’t Ticos drink a lot of coffee? Well, I believe this happens because only the lowest grade coffee typically remains in country. The coffee that is, generally, considered “not good enough” for exportation (sometimes because the beans/weather conditions were not optimal) is the lowest grade because the company’s want to sell the better coffee to people who will pay more for it. Ticos may be stuck with only lower grade options to buy but they clearly don’t buy it too often because it seems like they are known for not ever drinking the coffee produced in Costa Rica.

Relating to the “make” aspect of the supply chain, Café Britt does several things that increase their financial success. First, they keep everything that they produce in-house meaning they don’t need to outsource anything. From roasting their coffee to creating their chocolates to the marketing and design for new products, everything is done in-house at Café Britt facilities. Second, they are constantly innovating their products, whether that be by finding new varieties/new aromas to introduce to a blend or by utilizing multiple different farmers to maximize their potential yield of the coffee crop every year. Lastly, one of Café Britt’s top concerns is the sustainability of their products and ensuring that they leave behind the least waste possible. They reuse old coffee bags and create envelopes and shopping bags to resell. With all of the waste that comes with stripping the coffee cherries to get to the beans, they reuse that waste as fertilizer or put it in compost to put some nutrients back into the soil and help the next crop.

In today’s market, coffee is in such high demand that companies are often forced to decide between quantity or quality. Costa Rican coffee is special because of all of the ways that the companies focus on the quality of their coffee; primarily through innovation, sustainability, care for the farmers and their communities, and the desire to produce a gourmet product. I think that Café Britt has done such an amazing job increasing their financial success because their goals all center on the quality of the bean. After all, Costa Rican coffee is able to be promoted as a gourmet brand because “The Golden Bean” has always been quality before quantity.