For our last day of Costa Rican activity, we stopped by a strawberry farm and picked up some strawberries for the ride. We then moved on to the La Paz waterfall gardens where we got to see many different animals from the area and some massive waterfalls. Taking the time to explore the area and see the scale of the waterfalls was truly wonderful. Through this trip we have done many sight visits and it has allowed me go gain a better grasp on the production and making of products like coffee.

To start off I learned a ton about what actually happens at the grounds of a coffee farm (no pun intended). They need to make a decision about It begins with a tiny coffee seed that then over the course of 3 years grows into a health coffee tree that can be used to produce for coffee for up to 22 more years. From those trees coffee pickers will go through and pick the best and most red cherries to be processed for whatever use.

After collection the go to a mill where their skins are removed and they are then fermented and dried to get that bean ready for roasting. It is then packaged so it can be distributed to roasters in country and internationally. Many companies have to then get their products inspected by ICAFE to ensure the quality of the product they are exporting. With all of these checks done the coffee can finally be distributed oversees to achieve the best prices.

The cherries then arrive at the roasters where they can get the desired flavor through their specific roasting process. The roasts go from light to dark and change based on the time left in the roaster as to how strong their flavor is. We learned that there are also other ways to roast like honey roasting where you cover he beans in honey before you roast to bring out more of the sweet notes. With all of these different roasts the beans are finally ready to go to retail stores across the world. They also go to many tourist attractions, hotels, and anywhere that you could think to find coffee.

Finally comes the consumer, the people buying coffee are often looking for a quality roast and searching out a Costa Rican coffee is a good bet. Many companies work to market the quality of their coffee since it is grown in the best. Companies like Cafe Britt also work to make different brands as to appeal more to local areas and not seem as big of a company.

This trip to Costa Rica has been amazing with so many different visits and experiences and I would gladly do it again.