If there was one thing that surprised me most about how the operations of the Doka plantation that we visited, it was the way in which they managed their labor. While I knew that immigration from Nicaragua to Costa Rica was common, I was absolutely shocked to hear that Nicaraguan workers made up ~75% of the cherry pickers on the plantation, though it made more sense when we were told their wages. While it is common for lower-paying jobs in the States to be disproportionately held by immigrants, this situation was on a whole new level. Fortunately, this is actually an overall positive in that these Nicaraguans are given the opportunity to voluntarily come and find work that is presumably more lucrative than what is available in their home country. In any case, it is a striking contrast to employment norms north of the Rio Grande.

Not only were the workers themselves a unique story, but so was the actual work that they did. The current post-industrialist global economy has gotten me so used to everything being highly mechanized, so to see true blue-collar labor where gears and servos are put to the side in favor of bare hands, muscle, and raw eyesight gives the production a very personal feel. None of this is to say that the labor was unfair or unreasonable; the workers had safe conditions and were more than compensated for their costs of living. What was surprising is that that kind of labor hardly exists in the United States. Even jobs that are considered to be “blue-collar” by our standards like farmers and construction workers use great amounts of machinery, in addition to some artificial intelligence, to do a little bit of manual work. This was the most prominent example of direct labor that was seen today, as it strongly exemplifies how different economies function at the level of the individual employee. Hopefully, this didn’t come across as too much of a cherry-picked example (Get it? Because, like, they’re cherry-picking? How did I get to be so gosh darn funny?)

As a low-budget part-time caffein consumer who is not, by any means, picky about their coffee, I would not consider myself to be of the target market for coffee that is specifically Costa Rican. I simply cannot effectively differentiate different origins of coffee, with the right balance of coffee, cream, and sugar being my key to an acceptable cup of Joe. With this in mind, it would be easy for me to say that Costa Rican coffee is largely performative and possibly overpriced when in actuality, I do not think that this is a fair assessment. While I might be skeptical as to how much more delicious the beans themselves actually are in relation to their price markup, the actual value in artisan goods has very little to do with the physical quality and practically everything to do with the brand and the feeling that it evokes. Whereas American consumers are used to brands merely being images of specific corporations (which is still the case in Central America), what Costa Rica has managed to do is to turn a country into a consumerist brand in itself. When one buys Costa Rican coffee, they are paying for the reassurance that it was made under well-maintained conditions with managers who took pride in only offering the healthiest of the beans to their consumers.

In a sense, they are paying for the respect that is shown to them by the entire process. Another way to think of it is that the markup also acts as a sort of charity, as that money is being used to pay wages to the otherwise impoverished Nicaraguan migrants through honest work. So, while there is a limit to how high in quality a cup of coffee can possibly be, there is plenty of reason to believe that, for the right demographic, the larger price tag can be more than compensated by the larger feeling of satisfaction and craftsmanship.

Much like the coffee plants themselves, this has been a very down-to-Earth look at the societal benefits of plantations like the one we visited. Despues de esto, siento mucho mejor sobre lo que estoy comprando en cada taza.