Description
Coffee and volcanic fire are intimately linked in Costa Rica: the ash Poas has scattered for millennia created the fertile soils where some of the world's finest Arabica beans grow today. This tour unites both worlds in a relaxed, flavor-packed day.
We start with a traditional breakfast as we climb toward Poas Volcano National Park, 8,885 feet (2,708 m) above sea level. After a short paved walk through cloud forest we reach the main crater lookout, an abyss more than half a mile wide where Laguna Caliente, one of the most acidic lakes on the planet, steams on the crater floor. When the trail is open, we continue to Botos Lagoon, a cold, deep-green mirror framed by elfin forest, bromeliads and ferns.
We then descend to Sabanilla de Alajuela, where the Vargas family has grown coffee for generations at Doka Estate. Its water-powered wet mill, running since the late 1800s, is a national heritage site and one of the oldest still operating in the country. We tour the seedling nursery, walk among coffee shrubs heavy with red cherries, see the patios where beans dry in the sun and step into the roasting room, where the aroma wraps around everything.
The perfect finale is a guided tasting: you'll learn to tell light roasts from dark, to recognize notes of chocolate, caramel or fruit, and to brew coffee the traditional way through a cloth chorreador. Before heading back, there is time to buy freshly roasted coffee straight from the farm, a souvenir that will keep your kitchen smelling like Costa Rica long after you return home.
