Cafés in Costa Rica San José

Grano de oro: from the Meseta Central to the Teatro Nacional

Coffee growing began in the Meseta Central, the central plateau, in 1779, and in 1832 a cargo went to Chile, where it was rebagged and shipped to England as "Café Chileno de Valparaíso".⁴ In 1843 the Guernsey captain William Le Lacheur loaded just under 5,000 bags at Puntarenas onto his ship, the Monarch, and sailed them to London.⁵

Coffee money was meant to build the Teatro Nacional. In March 1890 merchants and coffee growers proposed a tax of five centavos per arroba, a Spanish unit of weight, of exported coffee, but it raised only 132,873 pesos in three years against a building that cost more than three million, and in May 1893 it was replaced by a levy on imports.⁶

Law 2762 of 1961 still governs dealings between growers, mills and exporters.² In July 2020 Law 9815 made coffee the country's 15th national symbol, an idea that came from pupils at the Escuela San Rafael de Dota.⁷

Eight regions, with Los Santos in front

Icafé recognizes eight coffee regions, from lowland zones under 1,000 m, where the coffee is lighter, to highlands above 1,200 m, where volcanic soils give more acidity and aroma; each region has signed a quality agreement under which producers deliver only ripe fruit.⁹ The eight are Valle Occidental, Tarrazú, Tres Ríos, Orosi, Turrialba, Valle Central, Guanacaste and Brunca.⁴ When the coffee law was signed in 2020, the national coffee area stood at 93,697 ha.⁷

Los Santos consistently grows more than 40% of the national crop; in 2023–24 Valle Occidental grew about 20% and Pérez Zeledón 13%.² The Café Tarrazú denomination of origin, certified in February 2019, covers the three Los Santos cantons of Tarrazú, Dota and León Cortés, where 85.28% of the coffee area is Strictly Hard Bean grown at 1,200–1,650 m.⁸ Picking starts in the early-ripening zones of Coto Brus, Pérez Zeledón and Turrialba, and the 2020–21 harvest campaign ran from mid-August to March.¹⁷

The chorreador, the cafecito and the soda

The traditional brewer is the chorreador, a cloth filter hung on a wooden stand.¹¹ Many Costa Ricans add one, two or even three spoons of sugar; baristas interviewed by El Financiero suggested cutting back gradually, and one recommended steeping the grounds in hot water for three or four minutes before pouring them through the media, the cloth sock.¹⁰

Until recently a cafecito ordered at a soda, a small, inexpensive diner, meant plain black coffee from a machine or a chorreador; in San José it can now come with a choice of process, variety and brewing method.¹¹ In June 2025 espressos and cappuccinos at one café surveyed by Teletica cost ₡1,800–₡2,300, while a cup brewed at home from a ₡3,500 kilo of coffee came to about ₡40; a Statista ranking it cited put Costa Rica's cappuccinos second-dearest in Latin America, after Uruguay's.¹³

San José

The Mercado Central, founded in 1880, fills a block of Avenida Central about 250 m northwest of the Parque Central, and its narrow alleys hold more than 200 stalls and sodas, and coffee is sold alongside meat, fish and produce.¹⁴ The Teatro Nacional opened in October 1897 with a café for women among its ornamented rooms.⁶

Specialty coffee clusters in Barrio Escalante, where Franco and Cafeoteca serve beans from the country's eight regions.¹¹ Cafeoteca marked its tenth anniversary in 2023 and offers more than ten brewing methods, including siphon and Origami.¹² Downtown, La Mancha occupies the Steinvorth building of 1907 and brews V60, Chemex and AeroPress alongside espresso.¹²