The past two weeks have exposed me to more coffee than I have been in my prior 18 years. I have seen six different coffee plantations and learned almost everything there is to know about how coffee is first planted to when it finally arrives in the consumer’s hands. I now have a deep understanding…

Today we visited our final coffee farm of the trip. However, this company had something different about it than the rest, this company was a cooperative. This means that the company consists of a group of farmers that all send their coffee to a central location that does the processing. They also pool resources and services…

If you were to ask someone to describe what they know about Costa Rica, one of the first things that would most likely come to mind is the coffee industry. Coffee has been grown and sold out of Costa Rica for the past two centuries. The combination of soil, altitude, temperature, humidity, and other features have…

I grew up in what would be classified as typical suburban America. We had farms around us and took the occasional school field trip to visit a farm in the area. But, by no means did I have an understanding of what went into working on a farm on a daily basis and the types…

Personally, an unexpected group of people to find in Costa Rica would be Quakers from Alabama. But, sure enough, they are right here in the mountain rain forest of Monteverde. These Quakers were looking to leave the United States mainly due to its militaristic style as a country and want for them to enlist in…

Up until this morning, we have been in the Central Valley region of Costa Rica exploring both Heredia and San Jose. Today, we ventured to two other distinct regions of Costa Rica; the Pacific coast and the mountain rain forest. We went from being about 3000 feet above sea level, to at sea level, to…

The world we live in today has seen a large boom in technological advancements in the past 10-15 years. These include automation, 3D printing, laser cutting, drones, and many more that are revolutionizing how companies go about carrying out their manufacturing and distributing processes. These types of advancements are put in place for one main…

Today was our first real exposure to the coffee industry in Costa Rica. We took tours of Doka Estates and Café Britt and learned about how they produce their coffee along with the business aspects of their respective companies. Doka Estates is a family run company that has been in business since 1940 while Café…

After having spent two full days in Costa Rica, I am starting to become more accustomed to the Costa Rican culture. My knowledge of the history of Costa Rica was definitely expanded today after the presentation with Joaquin Lizano. However, this also had me starting to wonder about some of the aspects of the history…

Before traveling to Costa Rica, I have been outside of the United States only once and that was for a two-day stint in Bermuda via a cruise. So, to say my knowledge of the world beyond the United States was limited would be an understatement. I had very little knowledge of Costa Rica and what…

Costa Rica’s environmental sustainability efforts have not gone unnoticed in recent years as they are ranked 2nd in environmental sustainability behind only Switzerland (Tico Times). My initial reaction of the country and its people are that they have extreme dedication to making their country as green as possible. Having lived in America my entire life,…