more coffee!

     Coffee represents Costa Rican culture, a lifestyle, a history. It has been so important, that it has almost become second nature to many people and families here. It is something that this culture is proud of.

     In talking to my family, they revealed the cultural ideal that coffee is an important staple, drank from a young age.  It often serves a function of bringing people together at social gathers or just within the family before or during a meal.  When I asked about coffee’s connection to politics in Costa Rica they didn’t really give a direct answer, except mentioning that coffee has been important throughout Costa Rica’s history, for better or worse. I took this idea to mean that coffee’s presence throughout time here has both helped and hindered their society. The coffee as an export helped Costa Rica gain some control in the international market, yet at the same time also fostered this dependency on the demand of the consumer countries. Because Costa Rica found a niche market and based their success on the quality of their coffee, they were exporting their best coffee, leaving the lower quality beans for themselves. This seems somewhat paradoxical or contradictory to me- coffee is so tied to their culture, but despite its significance and their pride, Costa Rican’s are not the one’s consuming their best quality coffee.

     This idea led me to reflect upon a conversation I had with a man over spring break. In San Isidro, this man said that they are now trying to push this movement in which Costa Rica’s save some of the better quality coffee for themselves. His reasoning was more about health than correcting this injustice or paradox within Costa Rican society.  He explained that the coffee that people drink here has often been mixed with corn or other substances, which is not as healthy, or rewarding, as drinking coffee in its pure form.

     From my experiences here, I feel that in coffee houses or restaurants, while the coffee is so delicious, it that not really the purpose or function of the place or of the coffee.  Similar to the purposes of coffeehouses in the past, as meeting places for an exchange of information, I feel that the coffee is still secondary in these places to the social aspect. It is a place and a time to be social and catch up with one another.  I also find that in restaurants here, the idea of a delicious cup coffee serves a function of getting people in the door.  It is either the experience of the delicious iced coffee drink or the experience of having your coffee brewed in front of you as at the restaurant we all went to.  Either way, I feel that restaurants use this idea of coffee to their advantage, to get people out of their homes and into these public places, and once people are there, they will probably also buy a meal and stay a while. 

     While these ideas are also prevalent in the US, I feel that at home, the other extreme is also very much existent, in which coffee serves more of a function of helping people stay busy and on the go.  For example, on one hand we have the Starbucks seating area, often with a bookstore, where people come for their decadent coffee drink and catch up with a friend.  On the flip-side, you have the Dunkin-Donuts drive through with the motto “America Runs on Dunkin” furthering the ideal in the U.S. that coffee is a means to keep up with the “necessary busyness”. 

     While the functions may differ, I find interesting realizing that no matter where you go, coffee is not just coffee. There is deeper significance for the people that drink it, and an underlying motivation for the public places that serve it. These deeper meanings have affected societies throughout history-as in Costa Rica-concerning workers rights, the development of national banks, etc. or in the U.S. as a means to instill the American value of multitasking and constantly being on-the-go.