If you’re curious to learn about Costa Rican coffee and why it’s rated so highly, then a coffee tour is a must. For the leisurely coffee drinker, the Britt Coffee Tour is an excellent option for an educational yet entertaining and interactive coffee experience to sample some of the best golden beans of Costa Rica.
If you are ready to book your Cafe Britt Coffee Tour, you can click our booking link: Cafe Britt Coffee Tour to book your tour.
Cafe Britt
If you’ve visited a supermarket in Costa Rica and strolled past the coffee section, you for sure have seen Cafe Britt coffee. Originally founded by a man from the United States in 1985 to bring gourmet coffee to the local market, Cafe Britt is now a well recognized brand for gourmet certified organic coffee as well as leaders of coffee-related tourism activities in Costa Rica. Though they don’t have their own full working coffee plantation, they partner with various local Costa Rican coffee plantations and roast their coffee under the Britt name. They also have many gourmet chocolate and cookie products.
All supermarkets in Costa Rica stock their coffee and they have large souvenir stores and shops in both Guanacaste Airport and Juan Santamaria International Airport (San Jose International Airport).
Cafe Britt Coffee Tour
Cafe Britt offers coffee tours at their headquarters in Heredia. Find them on Google Maps under “Britt Coffee Tour.”
They offer two different coffee tours. The Classic Coffee Tour and the Coffee Lovers Experience.
Britt Classic Coffee Tour Experience
Prices are until November 30, 2024. Starting December 1, 2024, they will have different rates for the 2025 season. Prices listed include all taxes and fees.
The Britt Coffee Tour Classic Experience is $29.38 USD per adult and $23.73 USD per child ages 6-11. 12 and up are adult prices. Children under 6 are free for the tour.
They can also offer lunch and/or transportation from San Jose if you require it for an extra fee.
The Britt Coffee Tour Classic Experience is one hour and 20 minutes long. Half indoor, half outdoor. Minimal walking on concrete paths.
Includes bilingual guide, coffee samples, chocolate sample, entrance to butterfly garden and farm, coffee tasting.
Hours: 9 AM, 11 AM and 3:15 PM. Lunch available for tours at 9 AM and 11 AM only.
Britt Coffee Lovers Tour Experience
Prices are until November 30, 2024. Starting December 1, 2024, they will have different rates for the 2025 season. Prices listed include all taxes and fees.
The Britt Coffee Lovers Experience is 1 hour and 50 minutes. This tour is for serious coffee enthusiasts who want to get into the nitty gritty details of why Costa Rican coffee is just sooo good!
Hours: 1:15 PM only.
$40.68 USD per adult and $35.03 USD per child ages 6-11. You can also add lunch and/or transportation from San Jose for an extra fee.
Includes bilingual guides, detailed coffee presentation, coffee samples and chocolate tasting.
This tour is longer with more presentations on the cultivation, production and processing of coffee.
Britt Coffee Tour: Classic Experience
If you prefer to watch a video of this experience, check out our Youtube video of it below.
Don’t forget to book your Cafe Britt Coffee Tour in the link!
We did the Britt Classic Coffee Tour experience and it was a lot of fun. Our group was around 10 people with two families, one with two young kids.
The Cafe Britt Coffee Tour is a bit more of a fun presentation rather than a serious, informative plantation tour. We highly recommend it for the casual coffee drinker or families with young kids. The kids seemed very engaged on the tour, asking questions and wanting to participate as the presenters were very entertaining, charming and delightful to watch.
The coffee tour started with an introduction to Costa Rica’s history and how Costa Rica brought in coffee. They also mention how coffee became such an important crop in Costa Rica and how this one crop, particularly Arabica coffee, largely shaped Costa Rica to be the country it is today.
The next part of the presentation was at the little farm to see baby, juvenile and adult coffee plants.
Then we walked a little bit to the next part of the tour to learn more about the coffee harvesting in Costa Rica and how it’s done (it’s all done by hand). They asked for a volunteer and an enthusiastic mom ran up to get equipped to pick coffee cherries. It’s always more interesting to participate in tours like these, so you’re not just standing around, listening to people speak for 1+ hours.
Afterwards, we walked on a short trail through their small coffee farm. The best part was they had coffee sample stations at every corner.
The next part of the presentation was showing the drying process (usually by the sun) and then we headed inside the theater to see the coffee tasting.
Coffee Tasting (Indoor)
This part of the tour was indoors and it started off with a presentation of where the coffee plantations Britt works with are located. Then came the coffee tasting.
Two volunteers jumped up to the stage to learn how to properly taste coffee, to smell and taste the different flavors and aromas of the various types of coffee. Warning, it does require some slurping!
After the coffee tasting presentation, we went to the last part of the Britt Coffee Tour, the roasting part.
This tour showed us their original roaster and the modern day roaster and why roasting is SO important in the coffee process. One of the reasons why a lot of people don’t like coffee is because the beans were too darkly roasted, almost burned. Even though the quality of the coffee is very high, they were roasted too much. Did you know that the lighter roasted the coffee is, the more caffeine it has?
Optional Lunch
And that was the end of the tour! It ended in their cafeteria and store, so you have time to browse around to purchase anything if you want or get lunch. Lunch is a traditional Costa Rican meal of rice, beans, salad, soup and a protein. It was quite yummy.
How to Visit
As the tour is only 1 hour and 20 minutes, even the coffee lovers tour is 1 hour and 50 minutes, it’s a fantastic short activity to as a stop from the San Jose Airport to your next destination like La Paz, Poas or Vara Blanca. You can also do it on the day you land if you land in the morning as the coffee tour is only 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) from the San Jose International Airport. Another option is if you are going back to San Jose the day before your flight and you get there in the morning, you can do this coffee tour in the afternoon.
You can check our San Jose travel guide and our Heredia guide in the links to learn more about visiting these cities.
Need a hotel near San Jose International Airport? Check the link to get our recommendations.
Book your Cafe Britt Coffee Tour in the link!
Costa Rica Vacation Checklist
- First time to Costa Rica? Read our First Time in Costa Rica guide.
- Not sure how to move around Costa Rica? Read our How to Get Around Costa Rica guide to find the best transportation method for you.
- Click the link to get our detailed Costa Rica Packing List so you know what essential items to bring.
- Check our Costa Rica destinations map and Costa Rica restaurant map
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