27/01/2023
Before the USA took over Puerto Rico from Spain in 1898, Puerto Rico was among the top 6 High-Grade Coffee exporters in the world! In the 20th century, the economy of the island shifted from coffee to sugarcane as Puerto Rico supplied the mainland US with a lot of their sugar demand. Once the USA found cheaper suppliers in neighboring islands, the sugarcane and agriculture market and industry crashed in PR and we began to import our food from the USA instead of growing our own as we had done previously in our rich land. Today, most of the coffee we consume in the island is grown in Mexico and the Dominican republic, even though a lot of the imported coffee beans are toasted and processed in the island and thus the sign “Hecho en Puerto Rico” found in many supermarket coffee bags, even though the coffee itself is grown elsewhere. As part of a new project for Atabey Tours, we want to share the rich history of local Puerto Rican coffee with our global travelers, so they can get to smell, see, taste & support the world-class quality of Puerto Rican homegrown coffee which used to be exported to the Pope in the Vatican from Yauco, Puerto Rico in the first half of the 1900s. At the time, Puerto Rican Coffee was the most expensive coffee in all of the Americas in the European market.
To learn more, Contact us to book a unique “Café & Waterfall Experience” that will indulge all your senses (from forest bathing to mountain trekking and waterfall massages to local coffee tastings where you will consume the organic coffee beans grown before your eyes) and connect with the earth & soul of Puerto Rico like never before. We have made connections and alliances with local organic coffee farmers who also have organic farms full of aromatherapy plants and flowers, a butterfly nursery & all kinds of tropical exotic fruits we will have a chance to taste as well; all within a sustainable model for artesanal high-grade coffee cultivation in the island ☕️⛰🪴