Today is our last day of activities in Costa Rica! Over the past two weeks, I have learned so much about supply chains, especially with coffee. Coffee starts on the farm, where coffee cherries are grown on bushes. The coffee market is extremely competitive, so producers need to be outstanding in either quality or quantity to be successful. Costa Rica is the third-smallest country in Central America, so it can’t compete with quantity against countries like Brazil. As a result, Costa Rican coffee is known for its quality and is delivered to other countries in smaller quantities. Cherries are hand-picked and sorted several times to ensure quality, and only café arábica (as opposed to the lower-quality café robusta) is grown. Coffee is grown in areas like Monteverde, which provide constant moisture for coffee growth. However, these areas are usually at high altitudes and are far from coasts, making them hard to transport between continents. To facilitate the delivery of coffee from farms, a railroad was built connecting the Caribbean side of Costa Rica to San José. This made transportation faster and enabled the exportation of coffee from places with ideal farming conditions.

After the coffee has been grown, it must be processed and exported. Once the coffee cherries are sorted for quality, they are fermented and dried. While the fermenting process provides coffee with its recognizable flavor and aroma, the drying process ensures maintained quality during delivery. For example, the lack of moisture in dried coffee beans prevents the growth of mold throughout exportation. Drying the beans also reduces the weight of each package, increasing the amount of coffee that can fit in each 60 kg bag. Unroasted coffee is delivered in jute (burlap) bags and lined with a polyethylene liner bag to prevent bugs and fungus growth from compromising the coffee quality. Once packaged, the bags are shipped overseas to roasters in the United States. While ships are slower than planes, they are more cost-effective and can carry greater quantities of coffee. This enables Costa Rican producers to minimize costs and maximize profits when delivering.

Roasters and retail customers usually receive the bags of coffee after 1.5 months of transportation. Unroasted coffee can be stored for a year before its quality and freshness decrease, so the delivery process ensures that coffee beans can be shipped and received within their lifetime. Once beans are roasted, they are transported to retail stores to sell to individual customers. Roasted beans are bought in much smaller quantities, so they are packaged in smaller bags. Roasted beans also have different needs from unroasted beans, so their packaging looks completely different. Instead of being delivered in lined jute bags, the beans are transported in small, multi-laminated bags. The multiple layers create a barrier against coffee threats like oxygen, moisture, and UV light. In addition, roasted coffee produces carbon dioxide that can make bags explode if not released. As a result, most roasted coffee bags are equipped with a one-way valve that releases the carbon dioxide without allowing the entry of oxygen. These elements in packaging protect coffee during the delivery process to small retailers and to customers’ homes.

When customers buy roasted coffee, they buy beans (either whole or ground) in the small multi-laminated bags. These bags continue their protection when transported to customers’ homes, maintaining the freshness and quality of the purchased coffee. This is especially true for coffee in packages with resealable zip closures, as access to oxygen can be minimized between uses. The overall delivery processes between farmers, producers, roasters, and customers protect coffee from bugs and harmful elements. These steps all work together to maintain the Costa Rican reputation for high-quality coffee, encouraging repeated customer behavior and providing a stable customer base for companies in the coffee supply chain. As someone who usually prefers drinking tea to coffee, I had no idea how much work and thought went into ensuring that coffee was delivered safely to customers. While I cannot claim to become a coffee drinker in the future, I know that I will always appreciate the effort behind every cup of coffee I drink.

This is the end, and my, oh my…

It’s been fun, I cannot deny.

As our trip comes to a close,

So does my poetry and prose.

And all I can say is ‘adios’ and ‘good-bye.’