Coffee in Cartago Province
The valley floor is coffee almost end to end, and the altitude here does something specific to it.
Why It Grows Well Here
Coffee wants height, decent rainfall and a temperature that does not swing violently. The Orosi valley supplies all three, sitting high enough for slow ripening and wet enough that irrigation is somebody else's problem.
Slow ripening is the part that matters in the cup. Cherries that take longer to mature build more sugar, and the result is the acidity and clarity that the region's coffee is known for.
Seeing It
The harvest runs roughly from late in the year into the early months of the next, and during it the valley is full of pickers and the roads are full of trucks. Out of season it is simply a very green landscape with rows in it.
Several farms in the valley run tours. The good ones walk you through picking, depulping, drying and roasting in sequence and end with a cupping. The less good ones sell you a bag of beans in a shed.
Buying Some
Buy whole beans, buy them roasted recently, and buy them from the farm if you can rather than from a shop in San José airport.
Ask when it was roasted rather than when it was harvested. A bag sitting in warm air for four months is not going to taste like the cup you had on the tour, whatever the label says.