The emergence of the golden bean
The French introduced coffee into America in the beginnings of the 18th century. By mid-1700, Jamaica, Martinique and Haiti had become a premier source of coffee supply for Europe.
There is no official record as to when did the first coffee seeds or plants arrive to Costa Rica. Two different versions account for two possible dates: one gives credit to the then governor of Costa Rica, Tomás de Acosta, who in a letter dated 1808 states he bought coffee from a Zambo Miskito Indian that same year. The second version was based on a document published by Echeverría Morales, where coffee is said to have arrived from Panama in 1791.
At first, wealthy families used coffee shrubs as ornamental plants for private gardens. As time passed by, coffee proved to be perfectly suited to the climate and volcanic soils of the Central Highlands, and farmers began to take an interest in this crop. Coffee plantations spread gradually.
Costa Rican coffee to the world
Independence news reached Costa Rica in 1821, when only 2% of the national territory was occupied by a population of 50,000 inhabitants, most of them residing in the Central Valley. The land was used mainly to develop a subsistence economy, with products such as cocoa, tobacco, sugar cane, and cattle. Soon, crops began to be replaced by coffee plants, and by 1830, coffee was already a significant crop in this region.
Local consumption wasn't enough to turn coffee into a major industry, and coffee growers began to look for new markets. The first steps took Costa Rican coffee from Puntarenas to Chile, where it was packaged for sale and exported to England, a 5 month-voyage that left little earnings to coffee producers back in San José. At the time, coffee was commercialized under the name of Café Chileno de Valparaíso.
In 1843, William Le Lacheur, an English merchant, arrived to Costa Rica on board of his ship The Monarch. While his vessel was being fixed in the Pacific Port, he met with coffee growers in San José, and agreed to carry some product to England. Although coffee was to be paid on Le Lacheur's return, producers were desperate and accepted the deal. Two years later this visionary merchant returned to Costa Rica with the money to pay off the product he shipped and a new route to export coffee directly.
Coffee Expansion
Costa Rica became the first Central American nation to establish a coffee industry and to witness coffee benefits progressively. The first coffee plantations were established in Central Valley. By the 1850s, two thirds of all national production came from farms near San José. As the crop of coffee proved to be suited to the climate and fertile soils of the region, people expanded the agriculture frontiers to Cartago, Heredia, Alajuela, Barva and Curridabat.
Expansion to the west began in 1844, when a road built for oxcarts to carry the product from San José to Puntarenas, connected Atenas, San Ramón, Palmares and Naranjo through a secondary road system.
Due to coffee expansion, the national scene changed rapidly. Coffee growers were pursuing international markets. Coffee exports were initially sent from the Central Valley to the Pacific port of Puntarenas by oxcart &endash;a 65-mile journey. Then, coffee was shipped on a 3-month voyage to its final destination in England, around the southern end of South America, and across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe.
For this reason, the Atlantic railroad opened a new door for Costa Rica, and provided her with the tools to transform its economy. Construction of the railroad project began in 1871, and it was completed in 1890, 17 years later than expected. More lands were planted with coffee due to land colonization caused by the railroad project, and Paraíso, Jiménez and Turrialba joined the country's growing fraternity of coffee producers.
Costa Rican Coffee 
