Presenting Purchase Planning: Costa Rica 2023
An Educational Resource for Your Important Purchasing Decisions
Welcome to Purchase Planning 2023 – a tool designed with you in mind to create a smooth and informed purchasing process. This page provides educational context around Costa Rica’s coffee production and insight into our relationships, programs, and the current harvest. We believe in empowering our roasting partners to plan ahead for each country’s harvest. This provides first access to a wider variety of fresh crop lots and the assurance of coverage until the following harvest season.
We recognize that a roaster’s selections should be based on real-time information and are proud to provide this to you. Cafe Imports’ sales representatives, who work closely with our green buyers at origin, are excited to provide expert guidance through your purchasing decisions.
We hope you find this tool educational, timely, and practical. Take a look, and then contact us to begin planning your Costa Rica offerings for 2023.
Earlier Posts
Learning to Cup in Hawaii: The Kona Cultural Coffee Festival and the HCA Coffee Competition
Cafe Imports’ sensory analysis director, Ian Fretheim, is so curious about cupping that he’ll happily travel to the most remote place in the world to study it. (It helps that the world’s most remote landmass also happens to be Hawaii.) He’s had some thoughts about both Hawaiian coffee in general as well as our industry-wide cupping practices after coming back from the Kona Coffee Festival and after serving as head judge in the 2019 Hawaiian Coffee Association Cupping Competition. Climb into the mind of Ian Fretheim here.
Mexico Harvest Report 2019
There are lots of coffee-growing regions with potential, but when we think of untapped opportunities to invest in producers and make a real impact on quality and recovery, we can’t help but think of Mexico as a perfect example of what “potential” means from a coffee source. There are good varieties, a strong cooperative culture, and more streamlined logistics—so what has kept Mexico from truly shining as a growing region?
A Closer Look at Tega & Tula Specialty Coffee Farm in Keffa, Ethiopia
Single-farm traceable certified-organic coffees are hard to come by from Ethiopia, but Cafe Imports’ strong relationship with Tega & Tula Specialty Coffee Farm in Keffa, Ethiopia, is a special exception to that rule. Read more about T&T and its primary owner, Ahadu Woubshet.
Now Streaming: An Educational Coffee Processing Video Series
Coffee people are naturally curious, and we are no different at Cafe Imports: We love learning new things about this amazing plant, seed, and beverage, and we’re passionate about sharing any information we have on our Education page and through other free, accessible resources-like the brand-new Coffee Processing video series, which debuted last week on the Cafe Imports YouTube channel!
El Salvador Harvest Report 2019
It’s been another season to celebrate forward momentum and growth in El Salvador, senior green-coffee buyer Piero Cristiani reports after the end of the recent harvest. After several years of struggle following an outbreak of coffee-leaf rust, this small but strong producing country is boasting a bigger yield and stellar cups of Pacas and Pacamara, the latter variety “a national treasure of El Salvador,” Piero says.
Chalatenango Best Cup 2019
In March of 2019, we held the first-ever Best Cup cupping competition and live auction event in the small but mighty coffee-growing region of Chalatenango, El Salvador. This video tells the story of the Best Cup competition and our history working in Chalate, and hopefully inspires you to reserve your seat at the next auction event.
The Cafe Imports Coffee Variety Glossary and Gallery – Free educational resources available now
In the mood to take a deep dive into coffee varieties? We’ve got just the thing for you: The Cafe Imports Coffee Variety Glossary and Photo Gallery.
Knowledge Talks featuring Ever Meister
Just last month, Cafe Imports editorial manager Ever Meister visited four cities in Australia as the featured speaker in the most recent outing of Toby’s Estate Coffee’s “Knowledge Talks” series. Rather than give a straightforward lecture, she opted to create more of a conversation with the audience about coffee traceability and marketing ethics—two of her very favorite things to talk about and puzzle through, as anyone in the Cafe Imports office will tell you. Click through to watch the full video of her presentation.
CriaCarmo Program Supports At-Risk and Underprivileged Youth in Carmo de Minas, Brazil
In an effort to provide social and educational opportunities for the young family members of many of the coffee growers, pickers, and mill employees in the Carmo de Minas region, CarmoCoffees established a program called CriaCarmo, which offers a range of enrichment activities to at-risk and underprivileged youth in Carmo de Minas.
Carmo Best Cup 2018
Best Cup is designed to highlight the great work and vast potential for high-end specialty coffee within a particular microregion, and Carmo de Minas is a perfect location for that kind of signal boosting: CarmoCoffees, a developer and exporter of specialty lots there, works with more than 2,000 small- and medium-size farms in Carmo de Minas and has been one of the most active supporters of farmers transitioning from a focus solely on volume to one that takes quality into account.
Harvest Report: Costa Rica 2019
While Costa Rica accounts for just about 1 percent of the world’s total coffee volume, it has a huge place in our hearts (and our offerings sheet) at Cafe Imports. In this year’s harvest report, we’ll take a trip around the country’s growing regions with Oxcart Coffee: Cafe Imports Latin America, visiting some of our longest-term producer partners to find out how the 2018/19 cycle performed, and to get a sneak peek at what fantastic new-crop top lots will be arriving in our international warehouses shortly.
Our 2018 Progress Report
At the end of each year, we take a look back over how well we have lived up to our mission, stayed true to our values, and kept up focus on the guiding principles that inspire and motivate us at Cafe Imports: Quality, Service, Education, and Progress. This year’s Progress Report is condensed into a single analysis of our engagement with our communities, our educational outreach, and our efforts toward the development of ever-better coffee quality. Click to read the full report.