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Costa Rica Heritage: Tales of Beans

Article Summary: Costa Rica produces the finest gourmet coffee in the world.Its story, history and heritage- of both the church and cgourmet coffee

One man believe it or not started the coffee industry in Costa Rica. He used the money from his success to start and found the church in Costa Rica also.

William Le Lacheur, an Englishman was born on 15 October 1802 and was very early baptized with the name Guillaume Le Lacheur (using the French version of the forename) in the parish church of the Forest, Guernsey on 31 October by his parents Jean Le Lacheur and Marie Suzanne (née Allez). He was named after his grandfather, Guillaume Allez, who was also one of his godparents. Amazing how the French can mess up a good thing.

William is widely credited in Costa Rica as having transformed the economy of this Central American country by establishing a direct regular trade route for Costa Rican coffee growers to the European market, thereby helping to establish the Costa Rican coffee trade and development of gourmet coffee in Costa Rica. He set up an European trading route that took all the Costa Rica coffee to market. William grew up rather quietly in England but did grow a love for ships and shipping. He married Rachel in 1828 in a church wedding.Since they were not drinking coffee after dinner they played in bed and ended up with five children: Rachel, Emma, Amelia, John and Louisa.

He started his company by buying a ship. Now he had to find something to ship. The year was 1829.After sailing for 3 years and building a good shipping route and building up some capital to expand his shipping business he decided to expand his business. He traded up and got a bigger ship called the Minerva. By 1836, he had formed a company Le Lacheur & Co, which owned two ships: Minerva & Dart. He entered the fruit trade which required faster ships; faster routes and more money. Over the following years, he continued to add to his fleet, and seek out new markets. In 1841 he bought his first ship. The Monarch was a much larger vessel capable of journeys furthers a field. With longer journeys he was able to expand his trade and his routes. During a stop at the port of Mazatlan, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, he learnt that the Costa Rican gourmet coffee growers were having in finding a market for their produce. He decided to investigate.

Since their independence in 1839, Costa Rica found no regular trade routes for their fruit or coffee in the European markets. This was compounded by transportation problems within the country. The farms were too far from the coast or too close to the Pacific Coast {remember no Panama Canal at this time). The coffee-growing areas were located in the central part of the country, and it was impossible, because of the mountains and the rainy forest, to send the coffee to the Caribbean Sea and therefore to the Atlantic. It was a lot easier to ship the coffee to a Pacific port, Puntarenas, and to sail around Cape Horn to the Atlantic Ocean and onward to Europe. Further hampering them was Costa Rica had no internal railroad system.

William saw a huge business opportunity - as he had fallen in love with the Costa Rica coffee and knew it would sale well in Europe. He signed a treat with the coffee growers to haul the coffee to London on a regular basis. In 1843, the Monarch arrived in the Costa Rican port of Puntarenas, and loaded the first cargo of nearly 5,000 bags of coffee. The venture was a success, and he began increasing the size of his fleet to accommodate the increasing demand for coffee in London. During the rest of the 1840s, he diverted his other ships from the fruit trade to the coffee trade. Then starting in 1850 he commissioned the construction of five ships designed especially for the coffee trade. During the 1860s, a further seven ships were added to the fleet. In addition to his contribution to the Costa Rican economy through establishing trade routes, Le Lacheur made a significant impact on the development of a number of other aspects of Costa Rica.

Church coffee Le Lacheur, a devout Christian, was appalled by what he described "the lowest form of the Roman faith" being practiced where superstition took precedence over true religion. Through the British and Foreign Bible Society, he obtained and distributed Spanish Language bibles, thereby introducing Protestant faith into Costa Rica. As a result he distributed 3,500 bibles in Costa Rica, and was presented with an inscribed Imperial Quarto Bible by the Bible Society in recognition of his achievements. While the Us in 1864 was involved in a civil war, Costa Rica was building Protestent churches across the country. It was made of pre-fabricated iron, was carried to Costa Rica by Le Lacheur's son John and was assembled in San José as the Church of the Good Shepherd which founded the start of evangelism everywhere in Costa Rica. It became unofficially known as the 'Iron Church'. He started the protestent church which remodeled his first church in 1937. Once Le Lacheur had established a fleet of ships that were regularly making journeys between Costa Rica and London, he arranged with several Costa Rican families to take their sons to England for their education. This has been cited as a contributing factor to Costa Rica's economic success.

This arrangement was also responsible for the introduction of the game of football to Costa Rica. Through this Le Lacheur has also been credited with contributing to Costa Rica national team qualifying for the 2002 FIFA World Cup [1]. In 1856 Costa Rica declared WAR. They stoped the invasion quickly and went back to growing coffee. However, the march from the Costa Rican military base in San José to the northern border was an arduous one. Le Lacheur put his ships at the disposal of the Costa Rican military commanders to transport the army up the coast to the border so that they would arrive fit and ready to fight. As a result, they successfully repelled the filibusters.Hewas buried in London in a nice cementary against his wishes to be buried in Costa Rica. There is a Memorial to Captain William Le Lacheur of Guernsey in the Church of the Good Shepherd, San José, Costa Rica. He even had postage names done of him in Costa Rica and London. Costa Rica Coffee: Captain William Le Lacheur of Guernsey started thefirst practice of farming of gourmet coffee in Costa Rica. With over 100 years of practice they now produce the finest gourmet coffee in the world. Costa Rica - the finest gourmet coffee.

Article Source: http://www.upublish.info

About the Author:
George Moore
The best monthly coffee plan? The only coffee that helps orphans? Mission Grounds Gourmet Coffee - http://www.missiongrounds.com Serve it as your next church coffee.