Hola, today we visited another coffee business here in Costa Rica. Although both Doka and Cafe Britt work in the business of coffee they are different parts of the supply chain and have different things to offer. Cafe Britt focuses more on the roasting of coffee, while Doka grows the coffee plants. Doka roasts and creates the final product for 3% of their coffee beans though. In this visit we would focus more on the roasting and marketing side opposed to the growing and logistics of the coffee.
Tourists love the coffee brewed by Cafe Britt, while most ticos will not drink the coffee. As a tourist myself I will say I did not enjoy drinking the main free samples of coffee offered on the tour because they were all black coffee samples. I prefer the ice cream and coffee I ordered at the cafe after the tour. It was delicious. The main reason behind this is Costa Ricans do not buy gourmet coffee when buying coffee at the local super market. Instead they look for cheaper coffee such as Nicaraguan Coffee. Cafe Britt is considered more gourmet, steering potential tico drinkers away from the drink.
Not only does Cafe Britt focus on the roasting and brewing of the coffee. Cafe Britt also puts an emphasis in selling souvenirs at their various shops including the one at the end of our tour. More specifically their main product they sell is the T-Shirts in their shop. Focusing more on my group project, the “making” in the Cafe Britt is roasting the coffee in their factory or brewing the coffee to sell that their mini cafe that is found at the end of the tour (I highly recommend the Arenal). The making can also be considered the creation of the souvenirs being created for the gift shop that further increase the companies revenue. I think this is an excellent approach to expand the business and earn revenue from various streams of money, as well as the acquisitions in the companies holding, Arribada N.V.
Back at the University, I got to enjoy two more fun games of pick up soccer at the small field on the campus. It was a ton of fun despite the extreme heat and few injuries we endured throughout the game. We closed the day we finished with a lecture and a dance class where I learned how to salsa.
