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. The Coffee Lovers experience is longer with a heavier focus on the details of coffee processing.
Britt Coffee Tour: Classic Experience
Check out our Youtube video of the tour 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. They asked questions and wanted to participate.
The coffee tour started with an introduction to Costa Rica’s history and how Costa Rica brought in coffee, including why coffee became such an important crop in Costa Rica. WE also learned how 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 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. 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. 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. 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. At the same time, explained 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 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.
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!
Rosemary says
My adult son and I have booked a week in Samara middle of Jan. I understand from Liberia it is approx. 2 hours on paved roads to Samara to Villa Playa.
We wish to see La Fortuna and ArsenalNational Park and Rain Forest. Is that possible on a day tour. My son has been to CR several times before and once to Samara. I hope we can take a river canoe adventure or several local activities and lots of beach rests and swims right at our hotel. Suggestions?
Sammi says
Hello Rosemary, that is correct, Samara is about a 2 hour drive from Guanacaste Airport on a paved road. I believe there are day trips from Samara to La Fortuna where Arenal Volcano National Park is located, it is a long day trip as the drive is around 4 hours one way but you can check with the info center or your hotel to see if they can assist you with booking the tour, we unfortunately don’t have any tour partners in Samara.
Paula McCarthy says
I would like to learn more about Costa Rica especially the Playa Junquillal starting point. We are renting a house there for January, February, March 2025 and want to explore other areas. Thank you
Paula McCarthy
Sammi says
Hello Paula, Playa Junquillal is a beautiful beach and very small, peaceful beach neighborhood. You can check out our link for our full guide to that beach. If anything, we highly recommend you to rent a car because there isn’t really much there and all attractions are a couple hours drive away and you will need a car to get around for groceries, etc. You can check our Costa Rica car rental tips and get our Costa Rica car rental discount here and our team will be happy to help you quote a long term rental with a long term rate