Monteverde guide
Where is the best coffee in Monteverde?
Monteverde grows some of the best coffee in Costa Rica, and Santa Elena has more cafés per block than almost any town in the country. Here is how to tell a great cup from a tourist cup, and what to order once you find one.
Five signs you are about to drink a great cup
One: they can name the farm. Coffee that is "from Monteverde" is fine; coffee from a farm they can point to on the mountain is better. Two: they grind for each cup. A pot of pre ground coffee waiting on a hot plate has lost most of its aroma.
Three: the roast is recent, weeks not months, and they will tell you the date if you ask. Four: they offer a chorreado, the cloth filter brew Costa Ricans have used for two hundred years. Five: the milk is steamed for your drink, not poured from a jug that has been foamed three times.
What we pour at Hanging Garden Café
We buy from El Trapiche, a family farm here in Monteverde, roasted locally in small batches. We grind for each cup, brew chorreado or espresso, and steam milk to order. That is the whole secret; the mountain does the rest.
Try the Café con Leche if you want the Costa Rican classic, the Cloud Forest Latte with honey and cinnamon if you want ours, or a plain americano if you want to taste the farm with nothing in the way.
Why Monteverde coffee tastes different
Altitude. At 1,400 metres the cherry ripens slowly and builds sugar, so the cup is sweet and clean with chocolate and citrus. Monteverde is also a small region: few farms, small harvests, and almost nothing exported, so a cup here is genuinely something you cannot buy at home. Our coffee page explains it in detail.
Coffee tours near Santa Elena
If you have half a day, several family farms run coffee tours around Monteverde, usually two to three hours, often combined with sugar cane and chocolate. You will walk the plants, see the drying patios and the roaster, and taste at the end. Most hotels book them; go in the morning when it is drier.
If you have twenty minutes, come and taste the same mountain here. We are happy to explain what you are drinking.
The best coffee is the one you get before the reserve
The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve opens at 7:00, and the best birding is in the first hour. Most cafés in Santa Elena open at 7:00 or later. We open at 6:00 every day, so you can have a proper coffee and something warm, and still be at the gate when it opens.
Taking Monteverde coffee home
Ask at the counter for beans. Whole bean keeps better than ground; buy the smallest bag you will finish within a month, keep it sealed and out of the light, and grind just before brewing. It packs flat and it is the souvenir that gets used.