The last day has arrived. It’s a sad time to be saying goodbye to Costa Rica and Mama Maria. Over the past two days, we did quite a bit of exploring at La Paz Waterfall Gardens and a soccer game! We saw many birds like Toucans and parrots at La Paz as well as, of…
Tag: Austin Cheney
Strolling through San Jose
Today, we took a walking tour around the capital of Costa Rica, San Jose. We visited many landmarks such as the National Museum (pictured above), the Central Market, and the Plaza de la Cultura. Especially in the old parts of San Jose like the Plaza de la Cultura, we can see the influence of the…
Going Bananas for Pineapples?
Today, we visited both a banana and pineapple plantation. I must say, the pineapple was by far the best I have ever tasted. Anyway, the supply chain of bananas and pineapples differs significantly with coffee. One example is that bananas and pineapples completely skip the manufacturing step in a supply chain. Whereas coffee takes lots…
Chocolate Much Better than Hershey’s
Today we visited Sibo Chocolate, a gourmet chocolate maker near San Jose city. Just like with coffee, Costa Rica is a small country, so companies must market premium products to compete. Chocolate makers from Costa Rica simply cannot compete in quantity; there is not enough land to achieve this. Instead, they focus on making high-quality…
Life Monteverde: Cultivating Coffee Sustainability
Today we visited Life Monteverde, a coffee farm run by twelve families with an emphasis on the sustainability of their practices. Through Life Monteverde, we completed a service project with a local school, painting their fence and incorporating a new design with the help of the students. After that, we toured the farm, where we…
Chorales of the Cloud Forest
Today, we visited the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. Monteverde is a great example of Costa Rica’s emphasis on ecotourism, tourism that involves the conservation of natural areas for all to appreciate. During our hikes around the reserve, we found insects, birds, and monkeys native to Costa Rica. Perhaps the most amazing part of the hike…
Miles of Magnificent Mountains
Today, we left our host families in Heredia to travel to a hotel in Monteverde. Because most of the population in Costa Rica is concentrated in the central valley, life outside of that area looks much different. Towns are much more spread apart, and you can see a bigger emphasis on agriculture. The towns branch…
Brewed Brilliance at Cafe Britt
Today, we visited Cafe Britt, a coffee roaster under the umbrella of Grupo Arribada, which includes several other companies that focus on tourism, chocolate, and coffee shops. From the data in a marketing presentation, we learned that Cafe Britt focuses on attracting tourists to their products, and therefore the majority of Ticos don’t buy it….
Developing a Coffee Addiction at Doka
Today, we visited Doka Coffee Estate. On our tour, we saw the process of planting a coffee tree all the way through the roasting process. The first thing that surprised me about the process behind growing coffee was the amount of time necessary for a tree to start producing coffee cherries. It takes about four…
A Warm Welcome to Costa Rica
Just in our brief time exploring Heredia today, I really got a sense of a tightly knit community. I didn’t know what to expect beforehand in that regard, but I immediately saw multiple ways in which Costa Ricans value social connection and togetherness. One thing is the spacing (or lack thereof) between the houses. Most…
A Coffee Connoisseur’s Dream
Hello! My name is Austin Cheney, and I am a chemical engineering major from Beavercreek, Ohio. Because I haven’t travelled much outside the United States, I am very excited for the opportunity to travel to Costa Rica. I would not necessarily call myself a coffee connoisseur, but I definitely enjoy a cup of coffee. The…