I am incredibly grateful for receiving the Thomas Angelo Honors Scholarship for the Plus3 program and it has been an immense help with affording the opportunity to visit Costa Rica. Without the funds awarded to me, I would not have had the chance to experience this beautiful country in the same way. With less financial…
Tag: Adam Foster
Farewell, Pura Vida
The past two week have taught me more than I could imagine about the coffee industry. I never would have guessed how many stages were included in coffee production and how they all came together, especially from a selling standpoint. The first step to analyze in the coffee making process is coffee farms. Coffee farms…
Coffee Cooperating
We wrapped up our coffee tours today by visiting Dota, a coffee cooperative which has many special attributes unique to the other coffee companies we have visited. A cooperative is different from the typical organization in the sense that a cooperative pools from multiple separate organizations and combines their product into one final product in…
ICAFE: The Capital of Coffee R&D
Option 1 – One of the two companies we visited today is named ICAFE and its work revolves around the research and development of coffee plants including prevention of diseases, increased plant growth, and quality improvement. When touring the facilities, there were a few advanced technologies which stuck out to me as interesting and important…
Tourism in Monteverde
Monteverde is an incredibly important area of Costa Rica providing the country with worldwide foreign investment along with staple crops and a diverse biosphere home to species found nowhere else on the planet. Ever since its founding during the early 1950s by Quakers from Alabama, Monteverde has been growing tremendously. This is largely due to…
Farming in Costa Rica
The life of a Tico farmer is quite different from that of a farmer in the United States. As we toured Don Guillermo’s coffee farm on our second day here in Monteverde, it became clear just how challenging yet rewarding it can be to be a coffee farmer in Costa Rica. The life of a…
Journey to Monteverde
Despite the long and bumpy ride, today we got to witness different parts of Costa Rica as we drove three and a half hours across the country to Monteverde. Up until this point, we have only had the opportunity to visit some of the most populated ares of Costa Rica. However, seeing the areas outside…
San Jose: The Pittsburgh of Costa Rica
Our fourth day in Costa Rica involved a long day of touring the country’s beautiful capital: San Jose. The city of San Jose contains a large amount of history and is full of monuments and buildings which represent Costa Rica’s road to independence and prosperity. However, one of if not the primary reason for Costa…
The Amazing World of Coffee
Coffee was the theme of the day today as we toured both Doka, a large Costa Rican coffee producer, and Cafe Britt, a prominent Costa Rican coffee roaster. Cafe Britt roasts incredibly tasty and popular coffee which can be found all around the world, however, the natives of Costa Rica are not particularly fond of…
The Tico’s Economy
Today we had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Jose Sanchez who lectured us about the history of Costa Rica’s economy, where Costa Rica stands today, and some of the economic problems faced along the way. Throughout the past few decades, Costa Rica has proven to be successful economically and continues to grow. However, there are…
A Beautiful Day in a Beautiful Country
Due to my prior visit to Costa Rica in 2017, I had a general sense of the culture and what to expect. One of the key aspects of the Tico culture which lined up with my previous experience was the overwhelming hospitality. My host family welcomed me with incredible food, plenty of compliments, and patience…
Costa Rica: Sustainability at its Finest
To someone who has never visited, the country of Costa Rica may appear to be a simple nation of beautiful flowers and tasty fruit. However, Costa Rica is much more than a tourist’s paradise. The country’s impressive sustainability initiatives provide its citizens with a safe and green place to live and serves as a great…