Costa Rica coffee tours

There’s a quetzal in the coffee tree.

Iridescent turquoise and gold feathers, scarlet breast and long tail feathers – it’s unmistakable. It’s also not something you’d expect to see on a coffee tour in Costa Rica.

“The best quetzal sightings are on the coffee farms – proof of how well these coffee farms are run,” says Simon Forster, from our partners Beyond Tourism Co, who run our Costa Rica wildlife tour. “Often your guide will be a farmer because, especially in the breeding season, quetzal families will be in the trees. It’s amazing.”

Whatever route you take across Costa Rica, you’ll come across a coffee tour. However, not all coffee farms are created equal… or come with quetzals. Some of our best holidays lean towards the small growers and cooperatives that welcome visitors and wildlife onto their farms, offering tours, tastings, walks and chats with the families who show you the process from bean to cup.

Where you go depends on your preference – perhaps a quick classic tour and tasting in Monteverde Cloud Forest or a trip to a cooperative in the Sarapiqui Valley that serves a tilapia fish dinner alongside your peek behind the coffee-making curtain. You could also sign up to a coffee tasting with a barista in San Jose, learning about Costa Rica’s famously complex coffee flavours and how there are still pockets of coffee trees amongst the sprawling suburbs.

That ‘everybody’ includes you – tourists who would like to slow down a little and spend more than a half-day in Costa Rica’s coffee hills.

Sometimes that slowness is deliberate. Our local specialists can eke out the itinerary so that a quick coffee tour transforms into something even more meaningful, like a few nights in a forest lodge surrounded by glossy coffee trees – and the rustle of sloths or flash of a toucan. For wildlife, coffee cherries are as delicious as they sound.

At other times, that slowness is a simple fact of geography – rural roads winding into the hills, with tourists dropping off the further south they go, as hotels get fewer and farther between. Action-packed tours are for the north; in the south, you get to breathe, staying several nights in one lodge and embarking on wildlife, cycling and walking trips from there. Sometimes, you might not feel the need for anything but the luxury of a book on the terrace.

“It’s the hills,” says Simon. “There is something about the hills, the fence lines, the weather, the villages, the cloud forest... It’s an area that you don’t get large-scale farms on, because it wouldn’t be allowed now. It’s all farms that haven’t been bought out… a wonderfully peaceful part of the world.”

It’s a change of pace from the early days of coffee growing in Costa Rica.

In the 19th century, the government kicked off a free-for-all, handing out plots of land to anyone who fancied harvesting coffee, without much care for Indigenous people who already lived there. Ballooning agriculture and timber industries gutted over 80% of the rainforest until, in the 1990s, a forward-thinking government minister called Alvaro Umaña introduced incentives for looking after the environment – namely, cash for every hectare of intact or restored forest. Slotting national parks in place, it took less than 20 years for Costa Rica to stop and reverse deforestation.

There are still times when profits override peace in the coffee industry, with reports of poor working conditions on some farms and illegal deforestation on others. However, our Costa Rica specialists work with responsible coffee farms, where employee and environmental protections are built into the foundation. You’ll experience whatever is happening on the farm at that time – whether it’s picking, drying, pulping, milling or packing. Amongst the peace of shady rainforests and waterfalls – and the occasional deep, melodious quetzal call – it’s striking how far removed it is from vast multinational plantations.

“When you go on our tour, you can sense the coffee,” says Simon. “The fact that coffee is one of the few products in the world that can grow hand in hand with nature is really important.”

Be warned, though: Costa Rica isn’t like Nicaragua, where coffee is grown and woven into the social fabric of the country.

“I went to a really low-key coffee farm and stayed there – a lovely place in the mountains,” says Simon. “When I went to breakfast they had Nescafé at the table. You were surrounded by their fresh coffee and they were buying Nescafé.”

To many in Costa Rica, including farmers, coffee is a product – one that the economy relies on. There’s a keen business sense involved; farmers make much more exporting to Europe than keeping it in their own country. It’s big business – and so is tourism.

“Costa Rica is so dependent on tourism and it’s all based on wildlife,” says Simon. “There isn’t so much integration of local culture within tourism, often because many communities are so remote. There isn’t that much opportunity for it.”

Most people holidaying in Costa Rica end up with a great overview of the rainforests and the creatures within, but don’t consider spending quality time in the communities they whizz past.

Our coffee tours are that rare opportunity to meet people who live in rural areas and keep Costa Rica’s coffee industry alive – and as responsible as possible. “Coffee is almost a byproduct of the social experience,” says Simon.

Plus, for the wildlife lovers, there’s always the chance of a quetzal alighting on a branch above your head.

“If you do the right things, you’ll still have an incredible wildlife experience,” says Simon.

Just look for the quetzals.