Costa Rica Aquiares Esperanza

The name Aquiares means "land between rivers" in the Huetar indigenous language, and Aquiares Estate is commonly referred to as "Aquiares Coffee and Community." It is the largest farm in Costa Rica, home to 1800 people. Although the farm was founded in 1890, Alfonso Robelo is responsible for its transformation a century later. Alfonso arrived in Costa Rica in the 1980's seeking refuge from the civil war in Nicaragua, where he was politically active. When politics soured into violence, he fled the country to keep his family and himself safe after receiving several threats against his life. Once in Costa Rica, Alfonso began building the Aquiares community on the enchanting slopes of the Turrialba volcano, a lush area of forests, rivers, fauna, and bright flora.

Alfonso challenged the status quo, transforming the relationship between landowners and farm workers. He brought a visionary approach to Aquiares, a farm suffering from low prices and instability. Aquiares had more than 200 employee homes on the farm, but because none owned their home, there was great insecurity in the workforce. Alfonso saw this as an opportunity to strengthen the company by making people feel proud of the coffee they produce. He evolved the farm into a small town where workers purchased their own homes. Today, Aquiares remains a model of sustainable agriculture.

Nowadays, Alfonso's son, Diego, manages the farm. Under his leadership, the farm has taken a fresh approach to specialty coffee and is exploring the farm's potential. Aquiares has become a trailblazer among specialty coffee producers in Costa Rica and Central America through excellent agricultural management, embracing new varieties, and experimenting with processing.

Aquiares focuses on carbon neutrality and measures its greenhouse gas emissions to calculate its carbon emissions against its offsets. An agent verified under the International Panel on Climate Change norms verifies these calculations, and Aquiares' carbon measurement and emissions reduction are part of Costa Rica's Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action. In addition to capturing carbon, the farm's protected biological corridors have long ensured the well-being of local animals and plants.