Here is an interesting Costa Rican coffee artifact I got at the Super Economico mercado!
I wanted to show you all this fun thing I found at the store in Bijagua and share a little bit about this uniquely Costa Rican coffee artifact.
If you are not from Costa Rica, you should first know, it is common in stores here for specials and freebies to be made available where two products are taped together with clear packing tape, and basically one of the items is a freebie or a two for one deal or a discounted bundle of items.
I've seen boxes of children's cereals with a package of children's cookies taped to them, a can of beer with a bag of chips, or things like beans and rice packets together for one price and so forth.
Today I found this package of coffee combined with a free coffee tin that is uniquely Costa Rican in it's design. Basically it makes fun of the local town police cops and turns them into clowns.
I think that's hilarious.
It also has two sides that have the Spanish words for some very important Costa Rican places and things so you can learn while you sip your morning mug. Unfortunately it's the same set of words and icons on both sides of the can, so they missed an opportunity for showing even more things, but it's still pretty neat all the same.
You can read the story in the pictures I have included here because I used Google translate to shoot a picture of the description on the tin in English for you.
Apparently there's a whole series of the tins available in four different traditional Costa Rican clown characters and you would normally want to collect them all, but I think I'm good with just the cop clowns for myself. That suits my style.
The coffee brand is Leyendia Cafe Puro de Altura which means Legendary: pure high altitude coffee. It's pretty good, and typical of locally grown and manufactured commercial Costa Rican coffee.
☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️ Five Mug Rating: I'd buy it again. Even without the free tin!
And here is a little coffee life hack I came up with for off-grid, camping or travel or other situations where you have no refrigeration available, like me currently with my situation while living in the 40 foot RV-converted city transit bus I call home right now while I get my house built in Costa Rica on a parcel of land with running water, but no electricity service installed or delivered yet.
Basically when I used to live off grid in North Carolina in the USA, without electrical or running water utilities, I used only solar panels and generators to live for five years. I didn't have refrigeration so I would buy powdered creamer like coffee mate which doesn't require any refrigeration.
I would also keep sugar on hand and usually in a Tupperware dish. I learned that I could keep the coffee creamer jars and they make good sugar jars conveniently opening at the top to pour sugar out of and so forth.
The I figured out that I didn't have a sealed plastic container for my bag of sugar to protect it from humidity and insects and so I poured about half the sugar into the half-full powdered creamer bottle and then vigorously shook it until it was a mix.
Now I can just grab my bottle of already made powdered creamer-sugar mix and add it to my coffee without having to keep, clean or open two containers every time I make a fresh cup, and instead just pour the mix into my coffee and it's perfect with no mess or fuss.
Great for living without refrigeration or just when camping or fishing or tailgating or any other situation where you need to keep dry, insect free cream and sugar ready for your java and can't refrigerate milk or keep sugar in a paper bag dry.
Genius, eh? It's my idea so I certainly think so.
What's your favorite brand of Costa Rican coffee? The ever so common and popular 1820? Something locally grown near you? Something else?
Let me know in the comments below!
Pura Vida!
@SirCork
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