Café Britt Coffee 101
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Coffee 101

As coffee lovers ourselves, we know that it sometimes feels like we’ll never know everything we want to know about our favorite drink. Coffee is a world of its own, and even we are sometimes stumped. Unlike most of our visitors, though, we have direct access to some of the greatest minds in the coffee business, all of whom are kind enough to help us out with our doubts.

The Coffee 101 section of our blog is our gift to coffee geeks like ourselves, who want to know more about this miraculous beverage we call coffee, but may not know whom to ask.

Finding Your Best Coffee:

We get lots of the questions that revolve around how to make the best coffee. Should I use a coffee maker, espresso machine, or French press? How do I choose the roast that’s right for me? What is the difference between Costa Rican coffees? Coffee is incredibly personal! Since we know that each person’s favorite will be different, in the blog we provide the information that you need in order to be able to experiment and find the coffee, roast, and brewing method that you love best.



How to Brew Coffee and Make Drinks like Espresso:

With our Brewing Series, you’ll see step-by-step how to brew coffee with methods like the v60, French press, chorreador, and more. Although we won’t all buy a high-end espresso machine or invest in a new pour-over coffee method, there’s still lots of benefit in learning how these drinks are made. Even if you don’t have the tools yourself, you’ll be armed with knowledge that will help you tell the difference between a true barista and a person who simply makes coffee.

You’ll also get tips on like how to make the best iced coffee, which roast works best with each method, and the flavor differences between brewing methods.



The Story Behind Your Coffee:

We’ll also delve into aspects of coffee production, from types of coffee and the differences between Arabica coffee and Robusta to how to roast a green coffee bean and the science behind decaf coffee. As experts, we always love to share our knowledge about the industry that gives us our livelihood. We believe that the more you know about coffee production, the better you will appreciate the effort involved in bringing you the high-quality coffee beans that Café Britt is known for.

We look forward to sharing our coffee expertise with you in Coffee 101!

  • Heritage 2022:

    Café Britt Anniversary Blend: The Rich Heritage of Our Gourmet Coffee

    June 2022

    Every year, we celebrate Costa Rican coffee and the country’s rich history of coffee production by creating an anniversary blend using coffee from a specific source in Costa Ri...

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  • Navigate a Coffee Plantation

    Navigate a Coffee Plantation Like a Pro

    June 2022

    If you’re interested in taking your coffee knowledge to the next level, look no further. There are plenty of Costa Rican terms you may already know: M...

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  • main- A Year In Coffee

    Decaf Coffee Myths

    August 2020

    Even for the most ardent coffee lovers, decaf can be a bit of a mystery. Have doubts? Then let us clear up some of the myths surrounding decaffeinated c...

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  • Favorite Brewing Methods

    Cafe Britt's Brewing Series: French Press

    July 2020

    ...

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  • main- A Year In Coffee

    A Year in Coffee

    February 2020

    Living in a coffee-producing country, we have the opportunity to view firsthand the changes that plantations go through in the course of a year. Every ...

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  • Blends versus Single origin

    Coffee Blends versus Single Origin

    November 2019

    Both blends and single-origin coffees offer unique, expert...

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  • Holiday Blend 2019

    Holiday Blend 2019

    November 2019

    The holidays are almost here, and we’re looking forward to a new edition of our beloved ...

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  • Heritage 2019:

    Heritage 2019: A Legacy of Excellence

    August 2019

    Each year, Café Britt selects a single-origin coffee that represents a key factor in our history: a legacy of excellence. Since launching the line, coffees from family farms, bean...

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  • Habitat Cariblanco

    Habitat Cariblanco

    April 2019

    Have you taken a ...

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  • Hábitat Update: Sloth Release

    Hábitat Update: Sloth Release

    March 2019

    As part of our ...

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  • The Difference Between Espresso and Ristretto

    The Difference Between Espresso and Ristretto

    October 2018

    The never-ending quest for the perfect caffeinated drink requires more than just finding a great blend of coffee beans. It also means finding the right way of preparing t...

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  • Coffee 101: Introducing Fusión Blend

    Introducing Fusión Blend

    September 2018

    At Café Britt, we are always looking for ways to innovate in order to give our customers something new and exciting. So we are proud to introduce our exclusive Fusión blend, a uni...

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  • Heritage Blend: Celebrate a history of flavor

    Heritage Blend: A Legacy of Excellence

    July 2018

    About two hours from Costa Rica’s capital city, San José, up and down verdant hills and valleys, lies a region called the Zona de los Santos. This “saintly zone” gets its nam...

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  • Sloth Update

    Update on Sloth Conservation and Hábitat

    May 2018

    In late 2017, Café Britt launched our first Hábitat blend dedicated to protecting Costa Rican wildlife. The purchase of each coffee supports a native animal, and our first bl...

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  • International Women's Day

    International Women’s Day

    March 2018

    March 8 is International Women’s Day, so we’ve been thinking about the contributions of women in the coffee industry. Women have historically been and continue to be essentia...

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  • Habitat Blend

    Habitat Blend: Supporting sloth rescue and release

    December 2017

    Costa Rica is known worldwide for its incredible flora and fauna. In fact, it holds approximately 5% of the planet’s biodiversit...

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  • Update on Jaguar Project

    Update on Jaguar Project

    December 2017

    A few months ago, we announced the launch of our ...

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  • Holiday Blend 2017

    Holiday Blend 2017

    November 2017

    It’s almost our favorite time of the year. That’s right—coffee harvest time i...

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  • Brewing Series Chorreador

    Chorreador: Cafe Britt's Brewing Series

    October 2017

    No ...

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  • Brewing Series Iced Coffee

    Iced Coffee: Cafe Britt's Brewing Series

    August 2017

    In the last edition of Café Britt’s Brewing Series, our Master Brewer showed you ...

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  • Heritage Blend 2017

    Heritage Blend: “A Legacy of Excellence”

    July 2017

    When choosing the source of the beans for our annual Heritage Blend, Britt looks not only for exceptional quality, but also for a unique story that honors the long history of...

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  • Brewing Series V60

    V60: Cafe Britt's Brewing Series

    June 2017

    The V60 is the brewing method of choice for coffee lovers everywhere. If you’ve ever ordered a pour over at a coffee shop, it’s likely you’ve already tasted what the V60 can ...

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  • Merito Jaguar Blend

    Mérito Jaguar Blend: Honoring the life of Jaguars in Costa Rica

    April 2017

    Mérito Jaguar Blend is Britt´s contribution to the Jaguar’s conservation ...

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  • Find Your New Favorite Coffee

    Find Your New Favorite Coffee

    December 2016

    When we say a certain type of coffee is our favorite, what we’re really saying is that we love its flavor notes. This is why we’re grouping together some of our best-selling coffe...

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  • The Coffees We’re Loving Right Now

    The Coffees We’re Loving Right Now

    September 2016

    One of the perks of working at Café Britt is that our office coffee includes some of the best coffees in the world. On any given day we have more than 25 coffees we can choose fro...

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  • Ways to Keep Coffee Farming Sustainable

    Ways to Keep Coffee Farming Sustainable

    August 2016

    At Britt we’ve understood the importance of sustainability for decades. While there is lots of debate over what it means to be sustainable and enviro...

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  • Our Light Roast

    Our Light Roast

    August 2016

    Our Light Roast is one of our most popular blends, but not a lot of people know what makes it so special. Does it have less caffeine than dark roasts ...

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  • The Difference Between Coffee and Espresso

    The Difference between coffee and espresso

    August 2016

    At Café Britt, we often talk about the art and science of coffee. Making coffee is a complex process and with so many terms and methods, it’s easy to ...

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  • Villa de las Flores

    Introducing Villa de las Flores!

    August 2016

    Hidden under tropical mist and thick foliage, is the idyllic Finca Villa de las Flores, a small farm that has been certified organic for over ten year...

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  • Dark Roast Coffee

    Our First Coffee: Dark Roast

    August 2016

    Dark Roast is the most popular coffee at Café Britt. It was also our very first! The story of Dark Roast is the ...

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  • How to Make a Perfect Cup of Coffee

    How to Make a Perfect Cup of Coffee

    August 2016

    Ready to take your cup of coffee to the next level? We’ve got you covered. The four components of a great cup of coffee are water, grind, time and...

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  • Decaf Coffee Real Coffee

    Is decaf coffee real coffee?

    August 2016

    Have you ever had a delicious cup of decaf coffee? If the answer is no, then you haven't tried Café Britt's famous decaf house blend. This special...

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  • A Coffee You Can Trust

    A Coffee You Can Trust

    August 2016

    Grupo Britt is a service company and we take that responsibility seriously. Our mission is to serve people and to impact their lives positively. We...

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  • What's the Difference Between Coffees

    What's the difference between coffees?

    August 2016

    Most coffee brands offer several varieties of coffee flavors and blends. It can seem overwhelming at first, but there are a ton of factors that dictate...

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  • Favorite Brewing Methods

    Our 2 Favorite Brewing Methods

    August 2016

    At Britt we rely on two brewing methods to prepare our gourmet coffee. Here’s a guide to understanding these methods and how we use them:

    ...

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  • What is a Peaberry

    What is a peaberry?

    August 2016

    If you’re wondering what level of the food pyramid coffee fits into, it may interest you to know that coffee is actually a fruit. Inside each cherry ar...

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  • Meet the producer: Don Francisco

    Meet the producer: Don Francisco

    July 2016

    History

    Don Francisco is well known as the mastermind behind some of Costa Rica’s best coffees. His love of his profession is evident not on...

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  • Not All Coffee Cherries are Red

    Not all your coffee cherries are red

    July 2016

    There are many different varieties of coffee, each with its own unique flavors. Coffee farmers breed coffee plants to enhance these flavors and ...

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  • The Coffee Belt

    The Coffee Belt

    July 2016

    Have you ever thought about why coffee is only grown in certain countries? When we hear about coffee production, the same names keep popping u...

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  • The Art and Science of Roasting Coffee

    The Art & Science of Roasting Coffee

    July 2016

    Roasting coffee is both an art and a science. Skillful execution of the roasting process is essential because it transforms the properties of a green c...

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  • The Differences Between Gourmet and Regular Coffee

    The differences between gourmet and regular coffee

    July 2016

    Tastes are subjective, but when it comes to coffee, you can train your taste buds to identify and enjoy fine coffee. Here are some of the differences b...

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  • Sustainably Produced, Organically Farmed

    Sustainably-produced, organically farmed

    July 2016

    In 1991, six years after Britt was founded, we realized the value of organic farming and made a decision to pioneer the organic coffee movement in Costa Rica by helping farms...

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  • The Basics of Coffee Cupping

    The Basics of Coffee Cupping

    July 2016

    One of the best parts of coffee is the endless variety of flavors and aromas a particular blend can take on based on the region it comes from. For example, our Tarrazu coffee has ...

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  • What's a Coffee Farm

    What’s In a Coffee Farm?

    July 2016

    Have you ever been sipping a delicious cup of Joe and thought to yourself where on earth did this heavenly beverage come from? We’ve all been there and Britt is here to help answe...

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  • Costa Rican Coffee Journey

    Costa Rican Coffee Journey

    June 2016

    Before you can enjoy a delicious cup of coffee, each bean needs to be picked, processed, and roasted. Coffee production is still an artisanal business—this means a lot of people w...

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  • Coffee Processing 101

    Coffee Processing 101

    June 2016

    After a coffee cherry is picked and before it is roasted, the bean must be processed. Many people are experts on cherry types and roasting methods, but...

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  • The Truth About Fresh Coffee

    The truth About Fresh Coffee

    April 2016

    A lot of people enjoy ...

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  • 5 Reasons why Costa Rican coffee is the best

    5 Reasons Why Costa Rican Coffee Is the Best

    March 2016

    We may be biased, but we think Costa Rica has the best tasting coffee you can find on planet earth. And we’re not the only ones. People travel from far and wide to experience the ...

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  • Brew Coffee the Costa Rican Way

    Brew Coffee the Costa Rican Way

    February 2016

    If you just visited Costa Rica and bought a chorreador or if you’re looking for a way to amp up your coffee drinking routine this article will tel...

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  • 5 mistakes every coffee lover makes and how to solve them

    5 mistakes every coffee lover makes. And how to solve them.

    February 2016

    We’ve been in the coffee growing business for over three decades and have learned some things in the process that we’d like to share with you. Hopefully, you can benefit from the ...

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  • How to Fake a Cappuccino

    How to Fake a Cappuccino

    September 2015

    We’ve all experienced that lethal combination of desperate cappuccino craving and stubborn laziness. We want a cappuccino. But we don’t want to go out. And unless you were smar...

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  • A Newbie's Guide to the Flat White

    A Newbie's Guide to the Flat White

    August 2015

    Where did the flat white originate?

    The origins of the flat white are a hotly debated topic. Traditionally, Australia has taken credit for...

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  • Merito la Cuña

    Merito La Cuña

    June 2015

    The Navarro Valverde family has been working in the coffee farming industry for over three generations. The patriarch, Don Ismael, started growing cof...

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  • Honey Processed Coffee: What makes it so special?

    Honey Processed Coffee: What makes it so special?

    June 2015

    We coffee lovers are always on the lookout for the best coffee drinking experience and for the last ten years, coffee growers in Costa Rica have been pu...

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  • Poás volcano in Costa Rica

    Britt Poás Coffee

    May 2015

    Costa Rica has around twenty ...

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  • Britt keeps the coffee parchment on for freshness

    Fresh-Roasted Flavor Depends On More Than The Roast

    December 2014

    Unroasted coffee beans are each encased in a layer of “parchment” – a loose-fitting translucent skin. The parchment layer is kind of like “nature’s Tupperware.” It keeps the unroa...

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  • Drink coffee and be healthy with Britt

    Drink Coffee and be Healthy

    December 2013

    The fifth edition of the World Barista Championship, the “Olympic Games” for baristas or coffee bartenders, took place in Trieste, Italy June 18-20.

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