Today we took the quick 15 minute drive to Café Britt located in Heredia. We were recapped on the whole coffee growing process that we learning yesterday while at the plantation. Café Britt was not at all what I expected. It was very high end and well marketed. When I learned that locals don’t really drink Café Britt but tourists do, I wasn’t too surprised. It seemed that the company really markets towards tourists only. They don’t advertise on billboards or television which is what would attract locals. They put it in airports and hotels where tourists would be staying when they came to visit.

On the contrary, I was very surprised that Café Britt’s most popular product was chocolate and not coffee. The lecturer was saying that right now, their biggest mission is to improve their chocolate since they are already successful in coffee. Café Britt is a roasting company, not a growing company. This means that they will buy the already picked beans from a plantation like Doka and roast and package them as their own brand.

Overall, I would say that Café Britt is very successful based off of their marketing tactics, not necessarily because their coffee is the best in the world. They market towards tourists who want a piece of Costa Rica with them when they go home. They put it in places where tourists will be when in country, put it in the airport when they are leaving the country, and they lastly have moved the company into the states and a few other countries for people to access.

I personally wasn’t too big of a fan of the way that Café Britt was talking about their company. It is one thing to have company pride but it’s another to think you are the best in the world. I would personally make the business attractive towards locals rather than tourists. If I wanted to make something seem authentic to Costa Rica, I would make sure it actually was authentic and not just some packaging with a volcano on it.