Coffee was first brought to Costa Rica during the last decade of the eighteenth century. On his death, Father Felix Velarde, the first Costa Rican coffee grower, bequeathed coffee seeds to his neighbors in a will dated 1816, inviting them to plant them. His suggestion must have taken hold because the first recorded export of Costa Rican coffee took place in 1820. By 1832 coffee was also being exported to Chile by Jorge Stiepel, a German businessman living in Costa Rica where it was repackaged, sent to England, and sold as "Valparaiso Chilean Coffee".
Costa Rica was one of the first countries of the western world to use coffee cleaning machinery. Marcus Mason, an American mechanical engineer invented three machines for pulping, cleaning, and polishing coffee. As coffee production developed further, the country's economy, society, and culture flourished. But that is another story...
The combination of ideal climate and outstanding soils in the Costa Rican coffee growing regions produces a hard, dense bean, rich in essential oils that result in an intensely aromatic cup of coffee overflowing with rich flavor. Of the coffee grown in Central American, Costa Rican coffee has the best balance of fruit, nut, and deptterrific as it is on its own, it is also a favorite to use in blends with other coffees.
