Today was the second coffee tour we got to experience! Café Britt had some similarities and some differences to Doka. It was pretty obvious that this tour attracted tourists because it mainly focused on the roasting and marketing of coffee. Café Britt falls into the selling portion of the supply chain because they don’t focus on growing the coffee bean itself. Doka would be considered the producer because they focus on growing the beans, filtering, fermentation and drying and sometimes roasting. This is a more holistic approach whereas Café Britt focuses on the end product and attracting customers.

If I had to guess, most Ticos don’t drink Café Britt because they are not the target audience. The business strategy is to persuade tourists (most commonly) Americans, that it is the best brand when they come to Costa Rica because we don’t know any better and are easily convinced.

To contribute to financial success, Café Britt sources its employees from Nicaragua, and sources its coffee beans from other plantations in Costa Rica to then focus on roasting and marketing. To bring in customers and create financial success they promote tours and sell merchandise in airports, hotels, and restaurants. They even decided to add chocolate to their business to generate wider variety. In addition, the tours at Café Britt use actors and actresses instead of tour guides to make it more engaging and fun for tourists. This is a very different approach than Doka yesterday. I think that Café Britt’s marketing approach works because a lot of companies focus on advertising and social media which is only a small fraction of what they do. I thought the presentation and environment today was a lot different than yesterday. Yesterday Doka was very spread out and consisted of a lot of acres. Today, I saw a lot of space taken up by a restaurant, butterfly gardens, a small petting zoo, and gift shops. It was obvious it was a different approach. Both are informative and interesting for different reasons but I liked having the chance to compare and contrast the two.

After the brew-it-ful tour today, we had lecture at ULatina and played fútbol to kill some time. It got a little intense. Jenna, Krista, and Ryan got some battle wounds but I absolutely love spending time outside with my new friends. It makes me happy how close we all are already! The lecture was educational, we learned about agriculture in Costa Rica. Finally we ended the day with salsa lessons. I would not consider myself the best dancer, but it was nice to experience the culture of Costa Rica, dance to the music, and try something new.

Tomorrow we travel to Monteverde which is really exciting, so stay tuned! It’s only day 4!