This morning, we visited Cafe Britt, one of Costa Rica’s most recognizable coffee brands. The tour itself was actually really fun. Josh and I got pulled up to do a coffee-making and tasting thing with the tour guide, which was pretty cool. The guide was great and clearly knew what he was talking about, and learning about the whole process was interesting.

That said, walking around the place, it was hard to ignore the sample stations every few feet, and at the end of the tour, we were dropped off in the gift shop, where there were promotional signs everywhere reading “buy 6 get 3 free.” It kinda felt a little like a tourist trap if I am being honest. Not in a bad way, but you could tell a lot of the experience was designed to get you to spend money.

The coffee itself has real roots, though. Coffee has been grown in Costa Rica since 1750, and the conditions here are genuinely unique. With over 100 volcanoes acting as natural fertilizers and temperatures staying around 64 to 69 degrees, the land does much of the work. Britt does not even own plantations, they buy from 3,000 different farms and only handle the roasting, which keeps local farmers in the picture.

So is Britt lifting up Costa Rican culture or packaging it for tourists? Probably both. The history and the product are real, but the experience is somewhat built around getting visitors to buy as much as possible before they leave. The authenticity is wrapped in a lot of marketing, which I do not think makes it bad, it just makes it a smart business.