Coffee in Costa Rica

The cultivation of coffee is a leading industry in Costa Rica, and has long been a source of prosperity. It was begun a hundred years ago; a few plants having been brought from New Granada, and the first trial being successful, it has rapidly extended. All the coffee is grown in the plain of San Jose, where the three principal towns are situated-about two-thirds being produced in the environs of the capital, a fourth in those of Hindia, and the remainder at Alhajuela, and its vicinity. The land which has been found by experience to be best suited to coffee is a black loam, and the next best, a dark-red earth--soils of a brown and dull yellow color being quite unsuitable. The plain of San Jose is mostly of the first class, being, like all the soils of Central America, formed with a large admixture of volcanic materials. Contrary to the experience of Java and Arabia, coffee is here found to thrive much better, and produce a more healthy and equal berry on plain land, than upon hills, or undulating slopes, which doubtless arises from the former retaining its moisture better, and generally containing a larger deposit of loam.

A coffee plantation in Costa Rica produces a crop the third year after it is planted, and is in perfection the fifth year. The coffee trees are planted in rows, with a space of about three yards between each and one between each plant, resembling in appearance hedges of the laurel bay. The weeds are cut down, and the earth slightly turned with a hoe, three or four times in the year; and the plant is not allowed to increase above the height of six feet, for the facility of gathering the fruit. The coffee tree here begins to flower in the months of March and April, and the berry ripens in the plains of San Jose in the months of November and December, strongly resembling a wild cherry in form and appearance, being covered with a similar sweet pulp.

As soon as the crimson color assumed by the ripe fruit indicates the time for cropping, numbers of men, women, and children are sent to gather the berry, which is piled in large heaps, to soften the pulp, for forty-eight hours, and then placed in tanks, through which a stream of water passes, when it is continually stirred, to free it from the outer pulp; after which it is spread out on a platform, with which every coffee estate is furnished, to dry in the sun; but there still exists an inner husk, which, when perfectly dry, is, in the smaller estates, removed by treading the berry under the feet of oxen; and in the larger, by water-mills, which bruise the berry slightly to break the husk, and afterwards separate it by fanners.

The coffee tree bears flowers only the second year, and its blossoms last only 24 hours. The returns of the third year are very abundant; at an average, each plant yielding a pound and a-half or two pounds of coffee.

The same families for have owned the largest coffee estates of Costa Rica over a century.

Costa Rican coffee is considered some of the finest in the world and generally only makes up a small percentage of the beans in most blends due to its higher cost compared to coffee of a lesser quality coming out of Brazil.