Costa Rican Coffee

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Costa Rican Coffee

Postby Andy » Fri Jun 10, 2005 3:07 pm

I just got back from a business trip to Costa Rica. The hotel I was in had Cafe Britt coffee which seemed really nice. Maybe it was just the tropical air - but I wanted to see if anyone had tried this and if it is known in the UK, and where to buy.

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Postby mattmills » Mon Jun 13, 2005 6:16 am

Cafe Britt has turned the Costa Rican domestic consumption around. They are a very good roaster and one of the few orgin roasters that buy good quality coffee. So dont worry it wasnt just the air. As you may have seen most coffees at origin are terrible.
Not sure where you can by it in the UK, and to be honest with the deterioation in quality due to the shipping it would not be the same and you may be dissapointed.
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Postby aloening » Wed Jun 15, 2005 2:13 pm

Hi Andy, Sorry I didn't notice this post before - our server got hacked by some script kiddie so I have been offline for a while. I guess you stayed in the Marriott or Bougainvillea in San Jose - great hotels.

Hopefuly without breaking the rules - look at our site www.100arabica.com
We are the importers and distributors for Cafe Britt in the UK.

Matt - of course we don't think that there is significant deterioration in quality with shipping. After all, looking at the UK's major roasters, they all give a year of so 'best before' date so that means they are happy that the coffee sits on the warm supermarket shelves for sometime. I guess the only way to find out is to try it .

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Postby mattmills » Wed Jun 15, 2005 3:25 pm

Of course they do, but this is just placed on the packet in order to satisfy EU legislations.

Come-on, of course there is a detirioration in the profile, there has to be, we even see it with the products from some of the biggest European brands with the most advanced packeging systems possible.

There is even a deterioration in the profile of the green beans during shipping... once the cell structure of the beans has been broken then this proccess is accelorated.
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Postby simonp » Wed Jun 15, 2005 3:40 pm

I take it we are talking about roasted coffee here. Surely it deteriorates the moment it has been roasted. We are all obsessed about fresh coffee here, hence all the home roasting. Mine tastes quite stale after a couple of weeks, even in airtight one-way valve bags. Certainly the stuff on the supermarket shelves tastes stale with months to go on the use by date.
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Postby aloening » Wed Jun 15, 2005 3:47 pm

Well EU legislation does not require the 18 months 'best before' date that I have seen on some UK roasters packets. So I guess they are happy with that.

I agree that there has to be some effect from time and travel. But this applies to all tropical products - pineapples and bananas that I have eating in Costa Rica are far superior to Costa Rican fruit bought in the UK. I guess that applies to some extent to green beans as well.

Cafe Britt have made very great efforts in the technology of cooling, degassing, oxidation protection and packaging which is at least as good as EU roasted products. All I can say is that our clients, so far without exception, like the products.

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Postby Guest » Wed Jun 15, 2005 8:05 pm

May be you should compare with some of Simon p's fresh roasted to make a fair and level evaluation?
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Postby aloening » Wed Jun 15, 2005 9:23 pm

Would be more than happy to do so - not sure when I could get to Wiltshire though. The point is I am not critising anyone elses coffee at all (well except for a few that I have tasted that will remain nameless!). But most people still buy pretty poor quality coffee from the supermarket so there is room for much improvement there.

Personally I used to buy supermarket stuff, until a collegue brought back some Cafe Britt from Costa Rica. I then worked in Costa Rica on a project for the last 5 years so brought back my own supplies.

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Postby phil » Wed Jun 15, 2005 10:30 pm

I should say I've had a PM from member who felt we were being too hard on Adrian. Said member is a home roaster too.

I think it's fair to say that those who haven't tasted truly fresh coffee probably feel that the likes of Cafe Britt are totally wonderful, being better than anything else they've had. To my mind we're having the same argument here as we routinely have regarding Charbux: is Charbux a bad thing because it serves what we, the self-appointed cognoscenti, feel is awful drek, or is it also a good thing because it raises coffee consciousness in the masses?

I'm not saying that I think Cafe Britt is awful drek. Please don't misunderstand me - I'm not stretching my analogy anything like that far. But perhaps we should be broad minded enough to accept that if someone like Adrian brings in something like Cafe Britt, which many people apparently like, then in its way that will also help with the long term raising of the European (or at least in this particular case, British) coffee consciousness?
Last edited by phil on Wed Jun 15, 2005 11:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby simonp » Wed Jun 15, 2005 11:27 pm

You're probably right Phil, perhaps my comments were a little aggressive. In my defence I had just been told that we were being expected to work an extra 10 hours (2 late nights) a week to get some time back on our project, so was not best pleased.
My comment was about this line:
"of course we don't think that there is significant deterioration in quality with shipping."
Which sort of goes against the general thinking here at TMC, in that fresh beans are essential to truly good coffee. I'm sure lots of people love Cafe Britt, and I have no reason to doubt its quality when fresh. But, would we accept that roasted coffee that has been on a ship for possibly some time has not gone (to the standrards that we are used to) somewhat stale?

Anyway, apologies to Adrian if any offence was caused. For all I know my roasts might taste like bilge water to Joe Public, or anyone else :lol:
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Postby pault » Thu Jun 16, 2005 12:08 am

Without wishing to take this off on another tangent or annoy anyone with my language (please tolerate any "off" tone, I'm tired)...

my perspective on all this is somewhat different - we can all argue over whether the Costa Rican coffee is fresh or not depending on how it's stored and transported but I'd emphasise that we're still all on the same page regarding the fact it is partly nice because it's identifiably Costa Rican (strikes me as obvious that the sooner you've consumed it after roasting [allowing for de-gassing] the more identifiably Costa Rican it will taste])

The whole premise of Charbucks is that both the environment you're consuming the coffee in and the coffee itself is as identical as they can make it - no matter where you are consuming it in the world.

I'd also disagree with the "self-appointed cognoscenti" label Phil used - if you know something about something why be falsely modest? E.g. talking about "awful drek" - people who discuss anything at a suitably dumbed down level (e.g. TV pundits) are frequently labelled an "expert" and few people quibble, but if you argue that some things are intrinsically better than others and make that judgement based your firsthand experience of patently obvious differences in levels of complexity/freshness etc. - people use pejorative terms like "elitist" (the most commonly used label) or "cognoscenti".

I'm sorry - call me part of the unreconstructed, elitist, self-appointed cognoscenti but:

Charbucks create drinks made from burned beans + 800% milk so that you can't tell if the beans originally came from Mars - so I continually fail to see how they raise coffee consciousness - I think there's a stronger argument to claim they instil a false perception that cows need to do heavy overtime for coffee to be enjoyed and that every single country in the world spontaneously produces coffeeshops with subdued lighting and huge numbers of brown cushions and inanely grining servers that would look too cheerful in Santa's Grotto ...


While I'm in my pulpit .... The willingness to make unequivocal judgements about quality seems to be applied unevenly in our society. Nobody claims Kidderminster Harriers are as good as Manchester United (although when Man Utd go bankrupt they may well be the same :twisted: and I do tend to make the argument when I've had one beer too many) so why not make clear judgements about quality when it comes to coffee, its origins, its freshness etc.?

The more complexity you can bring out of Costa Rican beans for your coffee enjoyment the better. If they've been vacuum packed for months they're still likely to be better than bland generic beans that have had the same treatment, *but* obviously, fresh roasted, properly stored and quickly consumed beans are going to be better yet.

And another thing (if we were all in a pub I'd now be jabbing my finger and mumbling by this stage), surely anything that helps bring out what the French call the "terroir" of a product has got to be good - no??? That's not elitist or pretentious - it's simply what makes French/Spanish/Italian culture so much more quality conscious about most edible/drinkable things than any Charbucks/McD's lobotomised Brits/Yanks could ever hope to be ...

anyway - sorry if I've gone off on one - it's been a long tiring day and I won't hear evenly a vaguely good word about Charbucks :wink:

Summary of Paul's rant:

anything that encourages regional specialities in coffee/wine/food etc = good

anything to do with Man Utd or Charbucks (both generic deterritorialized global brands) = bad

anyone who defends Man Utd or Charbucks is a bad, bad person :wink:

Nighty night!!!!

best,

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Postby Gouezeri » Thu Jun 16, 2005 1:04 am

I was waiting for you to wade in on the *$ comments Paul... took you a while (you've also been overly quiet on the liverpool front).
As long as I'm reading Paul's rant correctly, (one of) the important point(s) is that it is all relevant. I've not tried Cafe Britt personally, so I cant comment specifically, however, on the general freshness debate, comparing home/micro roasted with a commercial wholesale product is not exactly balanced. Lets be honest, Man U against Kidderminster Harriers is not going to be the same kind of match as Liverpool v Milan was the other week. Both teams have their merits and can be worth watching in their respective enviroments.

Not everybody wants or has the time or knowledge to roast their own (though I do, minus the knowledge bit). I'd love to be able to produce or buy all that I consume fresh, however, this just isn't feasible, compromises have to be made, I don't bake my own bread, my dairy products come from a supermarket etc etc. (thankfully I have a couple of breweries locally and I know enough viticulteurs to be able to stock up!)

Having checked out the Cafe Britt website, it seems that they are trying to provide an authentic product from a specific region in agreement with Paul's comment on the value of identifiable origin. I appreciate their decision to have it roasted locally, but given the choice, I personally would rather roast it myself. If they sold greens, I definitely give them a try.

Finally, Paul, your perception of a French (can't comment on Italy/Spain) consciousness of the importance of local produce is flattering, but in most cases this is little more than provincial parochialism and I speak as someone having spent plenty of time in the Mauges (comes from "mauvais gens" infamous for welcoming foreigners). Most regions only buy local produce, frankly, because it is better than everyone elses ;-)

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Postby mattmills » Thu Jun 16, 2005 6:10 am

My apologies if i seemed to be a little forcefull, it was not the intention.
I have the upmost respect for Cafe Britt from my time in Costa Rica, and through my dealings with all those in the trade both there and in other Central American countires. What they have achieved has been nothing short of historic.... and i mean that.

What i wanted to bring up, as i have understood that this is a very open and honest forum based around the finer points of coffee is that there is no way that the coffee from Cafe Britt (or any other brand or product from a roaster) will taste as good after shipping/or sitting on a shelf or months. Hence why someone who has tasted the coffee in Costa Rica may not enjoy the same pleasure from the cup when tasting it here.

Oh and just for the record the coffee used by Cafe Britt, is of some of the best quality from Costa Rica... really very good.
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Postby aloening » Thu Jun 16, 2005 8:11 am

Hi Guys - firstly I did not take any offence to any of the comments in any way at all - I think they were all completely valid and it is interesting to discuss. I can't really add anything more to this other than to say that we all seems to have a job in coffee education to do, particularly to the restaurant and cafe trade in the UK, and in fact that applies to food as well!

Andy - are you out there? any comments?

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Postby ivdp » Thu Jun 16, 2005 8:12 am

Some remarks:
the statement that many customers like our product is not a very convincing statement. Kraft, Sarah Lee, Starbucks all have many more satisfied customers than all of the "gourmet coffee specialists" together.
As we all know, roasted coffee starts ageing when the cooling cycle has started. They are best used within a week of roasting.
Some years ago the industry believed that vacuum packing was the best to keep coffee fresh. We know that this is not true.
Now wehave different methods, but we also know that it will not help a lot to keep coffee beans or gound coffee fresh.

It seems not very logical to roast coffee far away from the consumers. This is true for origin countries but also for famous Italian roasters who ship world wide and claim that their coffees hold their freshness for many many months.


I might add another important observation: most people are used to drinking old coffee and might not reckognize fresh coffee.

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