Today, we started our day with a tour of another coffee plantation called Cafe Britt. This place was similar to our previous Doka tour, as Cafe Britt recently purchased Doka. Tourists love Cafe Britt and not just for their coffee. If you go into any airport shop, you will see people with bags of chocolates, coffee, and souvenirs. I believe that this is because one they have really good samples and they have a smart mix of storytelling and branding. Fun fact, coffee isn’t even Britts most popular product, it is their chocolates!!

Cafe Britt sits at the roasting and retail end of the coffee supply chain. Because of Costa Rica’s 112 volcanoes and diverse geography, different farms can grow beans with wildly different flavor profiles. After sourcing, Britt handles all of the roasting, packaging, and global distribution. They even roast 15 out of the 200 tons of coffee Costa Rica produces daily. While Britt is big on branding, they are even bigger in sales as last year alone they raked in $95 million. Cafe Britt does lots of things that help contribute to its financial success when it comes to sourcing. They get their beans from farmers and then adjust based on the climate. Due to climate change, it can be hard because different conditions mean different flavors (dry seasons produce less coffee, which means the prices will go up). I think that their approach is really smart, and they went about it in a good way. One thing that I think they could do is purchase more farm land so that they can make more coffee instead of something else being put there, like houses.

We then ended our day with dance lessons! We learned the salsa, bachata, and merengue with partners. We started off with the salsa, which was the hardest, but after lots of practice, I got it down. The bachata and merengue were easier, but still a bit hard to grasp the twirling part. I’m excited to continue dancing over the next few days!