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Costa Rican Coffee: How To Buy The Best Costa Rican Coffee In 2020

Many countries around the world produce coffee, but none like Costa Rica. Despite it only providing less than 1 percent of the world’s coffee, it still produces some of the most high-quality and respected coffee beans in the world today.  

In 1989, Costa Rica made it illegal to harvest anything other than 100% Arabica coffee beans, which literally made it illegal to harvest bad coffee, explaining why Costa Rica may have the highest quality coffee beans in the world.

Costa Rican coffee is a great option for home brewing, but there are hundreds of brands and different types of Costa Rican beans on the market, so how do you know what the best bean is to buy? No need to worry, as we have put together the best Costa Rican coffee beans to help you find out some good Costa Rican coffee to buy!

Best Costa Rican Coffee Brands

  1. Volcanica Costa Rican Coffee
  2. Out of the Grey Costa Rican Coffee
  3. Costa Rican Tarrazu Montecielo Coffee
  4. Cafe 1820 Molido Costa Rica Coffee
  5. Fresh Roasted Coffee Costa Rica Organic Coffee
  6. Cafe Britt Costa Rican Coffee
  7. Allegro Costa Rican Coffee
  8. Gevalia Costa Rican Coffee Beans
  9. Granda Parade Costa Rican Dark Roast Coffee
  10. AmazonFresh Whole Bean Coffee

1. Best Costa Rican Coffee – Volcanica Costa Rican Coffee Review

Costa Rican Coffee from Tarrazu is seen as one of the world’s best coffees. This coffee is of the highest quality and is grown at high altitudes on volcanic soil, where the beans ripen slowly, and it develops a rich and strong flavor. It is then master roasted to a medium color, which will preserve the natural taste of the bean. 

The farmers that grow this coffee take the time, effort, and labor to prepare you a top-quality coffee bean that is impossible to match. Every bean is hand-picked to ensure the highest-quality bean. This coffee bean has a rich aroma and provides you with a rich and popping flavor. Every package of the Costa Rican Volcanica Coffee is freshly roasted on a per order basis, and packaged in a one way-valve that maintains freshness during shipping.

Overall, this is the highest-quality Costa Rican coffee available on the market today, and when you choose to buy this coffee, you will be provided with a rich and flavorful Costa Rican coffee.


2. Best Costa Rican Coffee Beans – Out of the Grey Costa Rican Coffee Review

This Organic Costa Rican coffee is one of the best on the market today. This is a smaller bag of coffee, but it comes at a very low price compared to the other available. Out of the grey is one of the best Costa Rica coffee brands, and provides you with one of the best coffee from Costa Rica. 

This coffee is also grown at high altitudes, like many of the coffee in Costa Rica. It comes with a variety of options on how to grind it, so you can find the taste and type that will suit your taste buds.

After tasting this coffee, I can say, it is a more bitter and dark taste than any other Costa Rican coffee on this list, so if you enjoy a more bitter coffee, this is great Costa Rican Coffee for you!

Overall, this is quite a cheap and great alternative Costa Rican Coffee Brand that provides an alternative and powerful taste.


3. Best Coffee From Costa Rica – Café Britt – Costa Rican Tarrazu Montecielo Coffee Review

Here we have a more premium Costa Rican Coffee, coming it at a higher cost, but coming with a richer and fresh taste. Cafe Britt was founded in 1985, and with over 30 years of experience, Cafe Britt is seen as Costa Rica’s number one gourmet coffee company.

This coffee is grown in Costa Rica’s most renowned growing regions, and provides high-quality taste, and has a guaranteed freshness due to the triple-layer aluminum bag which locks in freshness. 

Cafe Britt provides a 100% beautiful Arabica tasting Costa Rican coffee and will provide you with an amazing coffee experience.


4. Best Costa Rican Tarrazu Coffee – Cafe 1820 Molido Costa Rica Coffee Review

The Cafe 1820 Mildo is a top-quality coffee, that will provide you with an amazing coffee experience. It comes in a three-pack, so you can enjoy three times the normal amount of coffee! The Coffee is 100% pure Arabica Coffee, and not mixed with other ingredients like other Costa Rican coffees. 

The flavor of this coffee is quite interesting like most Costa Rican coffee is taste is because of the high altitude the coffee is grown at, and it has a pleasant acidity to the coffee.

This coffee has a tint of bitter flavor that shows the superior quality of the coffee and really brings out how high-quality this coffee is. The coffee is the perfect color of ground coffee that allows for consistency, dried, or prepared.

This coffee is also quite cheap and provides an amazing honey taste. The honey process and light roast of this coffee is honestly amazing!

Overall, the Cafe 1820 Molido Costa Rica Gourmet Coffee is one of the highest quality and outstanding coffees for sale today. His coffee is perfect if your a coffee drinker looking for an amazing coffee!


5. Best Organic Costa Rican Coffee – Fresh Roasted Coffee Costa Rica Organic Coffee Review

Last but not least, we have the Fresh Roasted Organic Costa Rican coffee. This coffee is an organic alternative to the other coffee on this list and will provide you with a top-quality taste.

Because it is organic, it is more expensive than others on the list. The coffee is roasted in environmentally friendly coffee roasters that protect the environment, and to keep freshness, the coffee beans are roasted immediately before packaging to keep that fresh and powerful taste.

For me, this coffee honestly wasn’t the best tasting, but you definitely could tell it was 100% Arabica as it had a very powerful taste.

A great thing about these Costa Rican coffee beans is that the body is mild and clean at a medium roast, which allows them to be an amazing option for both hot and cold brew. The honey taste is amazing!

When I received these coffee beans, I could tell there was high quality, and they definitely take care and have a passion for providing you with the top-quality Costa Rican coffee.

If you’re truly looking for a company that has core values of creating sustainable and has a real passion for fresh and organic coffee, this is the coffee for you!


Costa Rican Coffee

Costa Rican is coffee is well-known for it’s rich aroma, light body and fruity flavors. To get the best tasting Costa Rican coffee, you want to try single origin beans. The most famous growing region in Tarrazu

Costa Rican Coffee Buyers Guide

A common a valid question, what makes Costa Rican coffee so much better than other countries coffees, well let’s find out.

Firstly, Costa Rica’s coffee production is an enormous part of its economy and has the first plants were grown in Meseta Central in 1779.

By around the first half of the 19th century, coffee production in Costa Rica had overtaken sugar and tobacco in its importance. Because of this importance, Costa Rica made sure its the coffee was the best it could be.

Another reason Costa Rican coffee is so good is because of the low volume, but high quality. Supply and demand, my friend, because Costa Rica only produces 1% of the world’s coffee, it is seen as something rare and hard to find in the general market.

Many coffee experts regard Costa Rica’s coffee as some of the best in the world, which makes it worth much higher and demand much higher. 

Why Is Costa Rican So Good?

The main reason the Costa Rican coffee is so good, is the growing climates and how they grow there coffee. Costa Rica is basically heaven for growing coffee.

Costa Rica has the perfect conditions for growing the best coffee beans in the world. Costa Rica’s temperature stays consistent all year round, ranging from 17-28 degrees Celcius.

In Costa Rica, it normally rains in the morning, and the sun comes out during the day, so it allows the coffee to grow and ripen and peak conditions. 

Costa Rican soil could not be better for growing coffee; the soil is fertile and allows rich and moist coffee beans to grow beautifully. The altitude that these coffee beans are grown on is also a huge benefit.

Because at higher altitudes, coffee beans take longer to ripen, the beans have a longer time to develop, allowing them to absorb more flavor.

It takes much more effort and manual labor to grow coffee at these high altitudes, so that is the reason why Costa Rican coffee is so scarce.

The coffee cherry from the coffee pickers is also quality checked to make sure, the coffee drinker is getting the best coffea arabica bean possible!


Costa Rica Banned Low-Quality Coffee

I know, crazy, right? But this a reak thing within Costa Rica’s legal system. In 1989 Costa Rica saw that they’re coffee production quality was degrading, and to stop this, they bring in a law that banned farmers from picking coffee beans that weren’t 100% Arabica.

This made the quality of Costa Rican coffee skyrocket, and also made the demand for there coffee go through the roof. This is a law I wish every country had! So every coffee bean from Costa Rica really is high-quality!

The Costa Rican coffee bean is normally medium roast, and there coffee plantation only provides the best arabica beans!

Where to buy Costa Rican Coffee?

Due to Costa Rica’s limited coffee supply, it is hard to buy Costa Rican coffee at times. So you may be wondering, where can I buy Costa Rican Coffee?

Well, you may find coffee at your local roaster, but you never know what that has been mixed with, ruining the ethnicity of the coffee. 

There are also many online stores that promise high-quality Costa Rican Coffee for a cheap price, but obviously, that can’t be true. There are a few trustworthy brands such as Volcanic and La Colombe that sell authentic Costa Rican Coffee, and Amazon also has a few high-quality sources of Costa Rican.

Obviously, the coffee listed above all is high-quality Costa Rican coffee.

Costa Rican Coffee Growing Regions

I do believe it is important to see where your coffee is coming from. National Geographic magazine named Costa Rica’s central highlands as the perfect region in the whole world for growing coffee, and they have many coffee growing regions.

On the northern edge of the central valley is a little village called Naranjo, which has been producing coffee for over 150 years.

There are also prominent coffee growing regions such as the West Valley, Tarrazu, Tres Rios, Brunca, and Guanacaste.

All regions share similar qualities such as high altitudes and volcanic soil, but all these regions produce different tasting coffee.

Tarrazu is a region that produces the most well-known Costa Rican coffee all year round. The Tarrazu region can be found in Costa Rica’s mountain and has a minimum altitude of 1200 meters.

The Costa Rican coffee bean is able to grown around the area, and arabica beans they roast are honestly amazing! We definitely recommend getting a coffee plantation coffee tour if you are planning to go to Costa Rica. 

The coffee plant and coffee farm workers are lovely, and they are able to produce some of the best dark roast coffee in the world!

kirkland costa rica coffee

How to Choose the Best Costa Rican Coffee?

So, you are maybe wondering how do I choose Costa Rican coffee?. Well, there are a few factors.

Price

Price is a big factor for anyone, you don’t want to spend an arm and leg on your everyday coffee, but Costa Rican coffee is much more expensive than the other coffees on the market due to the scarcity.

If you’re looking for an amazing coffee experience, it is worth forking out the price, but if you’re just looking for an early morning boost, we don’t recommend Costa Rican coffee.

Taste

Taste of Costa Rican coffee is different depending on the region, but they all have a similar fruity, vanilla, and peachy flavors.

Some of the coffee can be seen as more bitter than others, but overall the coffee is rich in flavor. Costa Rican coffee does differ, some can be dark roast and from the coffee growing region of central valley, the main coffee farmer there only get’s light roast coffee, so it really does depend.

The washed coffee from Costa Rican comes with a mild acidity, meaning most robusta beans will have a little acidity to them.

Costa rican robusta beans will also have a honey flavor!

Origin Of Costa Rican Coffee

By the end of the 1700s, the coffee industry in Costa Rica was starting form. After the first plant was made, the government saw the economic opportunity and took ahold of it.

To encourage the production of Costa Rican coffee, the government offered free land to coffee farmers, and this caused an explosion of production in Costa Rican coffee.

By 1829, Costa Ricas Coffee’s revenue had surpassed that of Tobacco and sugar, and it continued to grow.

Throughout the 1900s, coffee in Costa Rica continued to grow, and now Costa Rica has over 70,000 coffee farmers, and it is estimated that 10% of the population has a direct job in the coffee industry.

Now Costa Rica is the world’s 14th largest coffee growing country, and it has produced 215,639,213 lbs of coffee and has a 61% export rate, which is a lot. Costa Rica continues to produce high-quality coffee around the world, and their beans are sought after coffee experts worldwide.

One of the earliest coffee cafe’s, cafe rey is one of the famous cafe’s in Costa Rica, and there famous honey coffee has garnered worldwide praise.

kirkland costa rica coffee

Conclusion

There you go, everything you would ever need to know about the Costa Rican coffee industry.

We really hope you were able to find some info about the Costa Rican coffee industry and were able to find some good coffee! The Rosa Bianca washed coffee is amazing, and is our recommendation for our coffee!

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About David Dewitt

Hi, my name is David and I come from Columbus, Ohio. I am a amateur photographer, and a coffee lover. I love to write, and don't mind me a cup of joe!