Day two of coffee tours took us to Cafe Britt, another coffee company in Costa Rica. Like Doka, this tour explained the process of how coffee is made. However, these are where the similarities with Doka end. Cafe Britt buys most of their green coffee beans from producers around Costa Rica, and they spend most of their time roasting these beans. They then sell their coffee in their own stores and cafes. In addition, consumers are able to buy coffee directly off of Cafe Britt’s website, where the coffee is roasted per order to ensure freshness of the product. In addition, a lot of Cafe Britt’s popularity comes from their tours, as they are very fun and engaging. The guides are very enthusiastic about teaching their audience and even include some of the audience members in their presentation. Below is a picture of the end of our tour where our tour guide taught us how to identify the roast by smelling and tasting the coffee!
With their engaging tours, e-commerce, and cafes, Cafe Britt clearly gears their marketing towards tourists, so it’s no wonder that Ticos don’t drink their coffee. However, they still have several strategies that contribute to their financial success. Specifically, in Cafe Britt’s planning, they like to keep an open mind for adding/eliminating products. For example, they originally sold only chocolate covered coffee beans, but when they decided to introduce chocolate covered tropical fruits, it became a top seller. Additionally, Cafe Britt makes many of their decisions based on its impact to the environment. Currently, they are pursuing this by researching materials that could be used to make biodegradable k-cups. I think that this is a very beneficial approach, as they are not ruling out any options that may bring more profit to their company.
As I mentioned earlier, Cafe Britt buys green coffee beans, roasts them, and supplies them customers. This means that on the supply chain, they are the manufacturer and distributer. Since Doka is one of the producers of Cafe Britt coffee, this makes them suppliers on the supply chain. Both are equally as important, but they have very different purposes.
After the coffee tour, we headed back to the university for dance lessons! I had a lot of fun learning how to do salsa, bachata and merengue.
Tomorrow, we will be going to Monteverde where we will stay until Friday. I can’t wait to hike in a cloud forest and tour Life Monteverde!