HISTORY OF THE SANTA EDUVIGES GROUP (DOKA COFFEE ESTATE)

For the Santa Eduviges Group, coffee is more than a beverage, it's a way of life...

In 1929, the year that the great world depression began, every merchant sees their sales diminished. Don Clarindo Vargas, a small Costa Rican merchant of San Isidro of Sabanilla, Alajuela, decides to sell his small "pulpería", a commercial establishment common in small Costa Rican towns, when he foresaw the upcoming commercial disaster. Taking a great risk he sold the pulpería and acquired a small dairy in Fraijanes of Alajuela.

He once again risks all twenty years later when he sells the dairy. He exchanged it for large extensions of coffee growing fields in El Rodeo of San Isidro of Alajuela, and without knowing anything about the cultivation of coffee he begins a great ongoing tradition... the Vargas family tradition of the cultivation of fine coffee.

Thirty years passed before Don Clarindo could see the fruits of his labor. He founds the Beneficiadora Santa Eduviges in 1959. Nowadays, the enterprise is known as Santa Eduviges Group Inc., and Doka Coffee Estate. Run by Don Norman Vargas, son of Don Clarindo Vargas and Dorila Vargas and their six children and grandchildren, with 200 permanent staff members and 3.000 temporary workers that toil during the coffee picking season. Doka Estate covers approximately 2.000 'manzanas' (similar to acres) of coffee fields, equivalent to 1.600 hectares of land.

Santa Eduviges, their commercial name, was named due to the great devotion of the Vargas family toward Saint Eduviges, the saint that provides food and shelters to families that go without. The company logo represents the letter"V", capital letter of their surname, formed by the two leaves of coffee and at the heart of the logo the center of a family tradition: the "grain of gold" - the coffee bean.

So Doka Estate begins and grows over the decades until blossoming into one of the world's leading gourmet coffee producers. Their website now sells coffee allowing you to buy directly from the Vargas plantation in Costa Rica and having it shipped directly to you doorstep. The Real Coffee Tour is a tour into the traditional ways of producing coffee and you can see Don Clarindo's original water mill that still works - in fact, it's the oldest working water mill in the country!

Current activities at Doka Estate include: production, collection, milling, toasting, export, investigation, tourism and other activies.

All focused on maintaining and improving the quality of the coffee.

The main objective of the business is the production of coffee of the highest quality, in function of the equilibrium among the soil and the environment.

Thank you for visiting our website and learning about the great Doka Estate family tradition! We look forward to your visit.