Everything You Need to Know About the Don Juan Coffee Tour Monteverde

Thinking about booking the Don Juan Coffee Tour in Monteverde? You came to the right place!

I spent almost three months in Costa Rica with my family, and Monteverde was one of our favorite places in the whole country.

If you’re planning a trip to the Monteverde cloud forest in Costa Rica, then you definitely won’t want to miss out on the Don Juan Coffee Tour in Monteverde. It’s an easy drive from San Jose, too!

Coffee has long been an important part of the Costa Rican economy. It’s one of the best ways to learn about Costa Rican coffee and see how it’s made firsthand.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Don Juan Coffee Tour so that you can make the most of your experience.

History of the Don Juan Coffee Tour

👉 The Don Juan Coffee Tour takes place on the family’s working coffee farm in Monteverde.

Don Juan, the founder of Don Juan Coffee Company, was born in 1937. He was one of the region’s first farming families to arrive in Monteverde.

In 2005, one of his sons and a nephew chose to continue his legacy by establishing an espresso bar in Monteverde (a very popular destination in Costa Rica) using coffee from Don Juan’s modest Coffee Farm.

Oftentimes, Don Juan’s patrons asked about the coffee roasting process. So they decided to bring in a small coffee plant so the customers could see the real thing. However, that wasn’t enough.

The visitors wanted to know everything about where their cup of joe came from, start to finish. This is how Monteverde coffee tours began on Don Juan’s farm.

The very first tour was in 2006. Now, this unique Costa Rica tour has over 16 years of experience at the coffee plantation. Plus, Don Juan still tries to be around as often as possible to meet the visitors.

Don Juan Coffee Tour Overview

Location: Don Juan Coffee Tours Monteverde
Times: 8 am, 10 am, 1 pm, and 3 pm daily
Length: Approximately 2.5 hours

Coffee prices have dropped drastically all over the world since 1990, and tourism has taken its place as the country’s major source of income.

Coffee growing, on the other hand, continues to have a significant influence on Costa Rica’s culture. Everyone should go at least once to a coffee farm to truly experience genuine native Costa Rican culture.

You’ll get to see the whole process behind two very important products worldwide, Coffee and Chocolate.

It’s a great way to learn about Costa Rican coffee and chocolate production, not to mention the bonus time of learning about sugar cane growing!

Don Juan Coffee Tour

Costa Rican coffee is some of the best in the world. The country is known for its high-quality coffee beans, and Monteverde is one of the best places to find them.

After all, coffee can only be grown at certain elevations, generally between 800 and 1400 meters in altitude. It requires moderate temperatures and good soil.

Introduction

The tour starts with an introduction to the history of coffee in Costa Rica and its importance for the culture and the economy. The life cycle of the coffee plant will be examined, from seed to plant to fruit.

The star of the Don Juan Coffee Tour’s farm is a modest red cherry that becomes the beginning of coffee before it even arrives as a bean.

The first stage of the tour covers everything you need to know about growing and harvesting, preparing you for your favorite cup of coffee. You’ll also find out why sustainability is such an important topic.

Fun Fact: Coffee is sensitive and depends on healthy surrounding soil in order to grow properly.

Harvesting

After the introduction, you will learn about the harvesting process as well as the workers who immigrate to Monteverde for the picking season, which takes place from November to February.

Anyone taking the tour at this time of year gets an opportunity to help with the harvesting!

You will also learn how the pulp is traditionally removed from the coffee cherries as well as how the cherries are washed and separated.

Visitors doing a tour during the dry season will have an opportunity to see how the beans can naturally dry in the sun on the large patio.

Roasting

After the drying is done, the farm uses a roastery. If you’re interested in learning about that process, you’ll enjoy the next phase of the tour in that building.

There, you’ll discover what it means when coffee bags claim to be ‘aged’ or ‘roasted.’

The beans are placed in big fiber sacks to allow them to breathe, allowing them to mature properly. The warehouse is also where Don Juan coffee’s selection, roasting, and packaging take place.

Tasting

On the way to the tasting, you get an opportunity to ride in a typical ox cart. This is a fun way to experience the way of transportation of Costa Rica’s past.

After this, you will get to taste the Don Juan coffee in their restaurant, called La Casona. You’ll learn how to best enjoy coffee by focusing on its finer points as well as taking time to savor and differentiate aromas and flavors.

Coffee is important to the global economy, and it’s also essential for getting through your day.

Once you know how coffee is produced, from cherry to bean to brew, you’ll understand why origin is just as important as flavor.

Don Juan Chocolate Tour

Before coffee, cacao was the leading export product in Costa Rica. It also plays an important role in Costa Rican history.

Introduction

Costa Rica’s Chorotega and Bribri people revered the cacao bean. The Chorotega tribe utilized the bean as money until the 1930s. This cacao bean was quite significant culturally and economically to Costa Rica’s indigenous peoples.

For rituals and holidays, the Bribri women would prepare a unique chocolate drink from the bean.

It was referred to as the drink of the gods. It was more bitter than sweet, as it was historically only flavored with cayenne and vanilla beans rather than sugar.

Harvesting & Processing

Once the coffee tour is finished, you will start with the sweetest part of the tour. Just as with the Don Juan coffee Costa Rica tour, you get to learn about chocolate growing, harvesting, and processing.

You will visit a chocolate processing center that’s located at the Don Juan Coffee Tour farm. You will start out by seeing how the small cacao beans get turned into chocolate.

The process of making chocolate from cacao beans includes roasting, cracking, crushing, and grinding the beans into a paste.

This is mixed and mashed in a conche for up to a week. The chocolate is then tempered multiple times using heat and cooling.

Fun Fact: A conche is a machine that grinds chocolate particles down to sizes small enough that they can’t be felt in the mouth.

The guide will show you the traditional, Costa Rican methods of roasting and grinding the beans. You’ll even get a chance to try those processes yourself during the tour!

Tasting

Once the interactive tour is finished, you will have the opportunity to taste several types of chocolate: Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, and White Chocolate.

This part is sure to be a favorite for all the kids in your group. Who doesn’t enjoy a chocolate tasting?!!

Don Juan Sugar Cane Tour

The last part of the Don Juan tours Monteverde is a bonus in which you also get to learn about the sugar cane industry in Costa Rica. Guides will show you what sugar cane looks like and where it is grown at the farm.

After the guide demonstrates the traditional manner for extracting the sugar from the cane, you will even get to try a glass of pure sugar cane juice processed right on-site at the Don Juan Coffee Tour farm!

Don Juan Coffee Tour Tips

☑️ If you don’t have a car to drive yourself, you can opt to get round-trip transportation to the Don Juan Coffee Tour farm from local Monteverde area hotels.

☑️ If you do drive yourself, there is a parking lot available at the Don Juan Coffee Tour location.

☑️ Wear comfortable clothing and footwear. Although the walking path is short, you will still be standing or walking during most of the tour.

☑️ Bring or wear both insect repellent and sunscreen. You never know what sort of weather you’ll get during the two-hour tour window.

The Monteverde Area is well known for having a very diverse climate, even within a single day it could go from sunny and humid to thunderstorms within an hour.

☑️ Closed-toe shoes are not required because all their trails are covered and paved.

This tour is accessible to families with children who need to take their stroller as well as for people with physical limitations who use a walker, crutches, or wheelchair.

☑️ Plan to arrive a few minutes before the tour begins in order to ensure you don’t miss the start time.

☑️ Bring a credit card or some cash in case you want to buy coffee or chocolate at the gift shop.

☑️ If you aren’t planning a trip to Monteverde but still want to tour a coffee farm, check out the Don Juan Coffee Tour La Fortuna!

The family farm now has a second location in the lowland rainforests near the Arenal volcano!

☑️ After your coffee tour at Don Juan’s farm, stick around Monteverde for other fun activities like the Sky Tram and Sky Trek suspension bridges or a zip line canopy tour.

Related Reading:
The Best Places to See Monteverde Hummingbirds
Which Monteverde Waterfall Hike is Best?
Is a Monteverde Night Walk Worth It?
4 Cool Hanging Bridges in Monteverde You Need to Visit

Final Thoughts: Don Juan Coffee Tour

👉 The Don Juan Coffee Tour is the perfect activity for families visiting Monteverde Costa Rica.

Not only will you get to learn about the coffee growing, harvesting, and processing process, but you’ll also get to see how chocolate is made and taste several types of chocolate.

The bonus sugar cane tour is the perfect way to end the tour. You’ll get to see how sugar cane is grown and processed and even taste some pure sugar cane juice.

This is one of the Monteverde tours that is sure to be a hit with everyone in your group.

👉 While we have global health insurance for our day-to-day lives, we also elect travel insurance with SafetyWing for our spurts of fast travel adventure!