[New] Facts Rica

9. Coffee was introduced to Costa Rica from Jamaica in 1779. Called the grano de oro (grain of gold), coffee was Costa Rica’s foremost export for 150 years until tourism surpassed it in 1991. More than 247,104 acres of coffee are planted in Costa Rica, making it the 13th largest coffee exporter in the world.

10. In Costa Rica, a soda is a small, informal restaurant that serves chicken, beans, rice, and salad at prices that are generally lower than average.

11. Like Eskimos with their 57 words for snow, Costa Ricans have at least a dozen terms for rain — from drizzly pelo de gato (cat hair) to a baldazo or aguacero (downpour) and a temporal (heavy rain falling for several days without letting up during the rainy season). The heavy amounts of rain give Costa Rica more rivers and a higher volume of water for a country of its size than any other nation except for New Zealand.

12. Instead of saying “my other half,” Costa Ricans refer to their significant others as their “media naranja,” or “the other half of the orange.” 13. A common phrase used after a Costa Rican woman has a baby is "Ella dio a luz," meaning literally “She gave light.” 14. Costa Rican currency is officially called the colón, but Costa Ricans often use the word harina (flour) to refer to their money. 15. Costa Rican catadores, or tasters, decide which coffees to buy and are as important as wine tasters are in France. They train for five years to learn exactly how to slurp the coffee off a spoon onto their taste buds, and they taste it cold — a good coffee should taste just as good cold as hot. 16. Bri Bri is the one indigenous language still spoken in Costa Rica. 17. Costa Rica's deadliest snake is the ground-dwelling fer-de-lance, a 9.8-foot-long pit viper that accounts for more than 80% of the country's fatal snake bites. 18. Costa Rica is the second largest exporter of bananas in the world after Ecuador.

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