Today we visited a coffee plantation in Costa Rica called Doka. It was an amazing experience as we were able to get a behind the scenes look at the coffee process. We were able to see all the different steps in the process and learn about how Doka chooses to grow and export it’s product.
We walked around the farm and saw how each bean was grown, harvested, measured, cleaned, dried and roasted. There were so many intricate steps to the process that I wasn’t aware of and a few that surprised me when we learned about them.
The first thing we talked about that surprised me was about the pickers that come to the farm each year. In order to pick all the beans for harvest season the farm has a large amount of pickers that come to the farm each year and harvest the 350 acres of coffee plants that Doka owns. These pickers live on the farm for 4 months and are provided with a home, electricity, water and daycare, as well as being paid depending on how many Cahuelas they pick. The thing that suprised me the most is the fact that they only get paid 2 dollars per Cahuela, which about 25 pounds of harvested beans, and that they collect around 12-15 Cahuelas a day. They make around 30 dollars a day, which is a very little amount compared to a daily pay in the US. But after we discussed the benefits that come with staying on the farm and the fact that many of them come from Nicaragua where the Costa Rican money is worth more, it began to make a bit more sense.
The next thing that we talked about that I found to be surprising was the fact that Doka produces so much coffee but only keep a very small portion of it to roast and sell themselves. Out of all the high quality coffee they produce, about 3% of it is roasted and sold as the Doka brand 3 Generations. I found this to be surprising because I think that I figured that they would sell more of their product to Costa Ricans in coffee shops here, but it is more lucrative to have the majority of the product exported.
I think another part of the process that surprised me was that a lot of the technology they use has stayed consistant since the beginning of the farm. We looked at a wet mill that was over 100 years old and is still in use. I think it is so interesting that the plant can be so productive while only having altered their production process slightly over the past 100 years. I originally thought that there must be a better way or a more productive way to operate the plantation with new technology like harvesting tractors or new machinery, but when we talked to the General Manager and asked about this topic he explained that Costa Rica produced only a tiny portion of the worlds coffee supply, so it is not always financially smart or worth it to invest in the new technology for harvesting or processing that they may have in Brazil or Columbia because Costa Rican coffee farms are not comparable in scale.
This trip taught me so much about the coffee process but also about what it takes to run a company like Doka. There are so many different aspects that need to be thought about when creating such a successful brand. This tour was so eye opening for me, especially when we got speak with the General Manager.
I think that Costa Rican coffee is so impressive and amazing after seeing this tour. The coffee they let us try was pretty good. However we did learn that in Costa Rica they export the majority of the good coffee and then take the lower quality coffee for themselves, in order to make more money. So yes, I think Costa Rican coffee is worth the hype, but I don’t think you will always be drinking that amazing coffee when you are in Costa Rica.
