Costa Rica is home to some of the finest gourmet coffee in
the world. Gourmet coffee farming has become a huge
industry for them and they export the finest gourmet coffee
all over the world. It developed its coffee industry very
early - thanks to one man. It also has a strong protestant
religious church - thanks to one man. The man who made all
his money from coffee used it to start many churches in
Costa Rica.
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 the market and the
trade routes that allowed the coffee business to bloom and
flourish. William grew up rather quietly in England but did
grow a love for ships and shipping. After trade school he
married Rachel de Jersey (1798-1882) in a church wedding on
19 May 1828.No coffee was served and in time they had five
children: Rachel, Emma, Amelia, John and Louisa.
The Start of Costa Rica gourmet coffee and coffee trade To
support his family he bought a ship from his inheritance
and started sailing. 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, Le Lacheur took delivery of the baroque Monarch. 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 from
the British Consul of the difficulty 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 agreed with Costa Rican coffee growers
to establish a regular service to carry their coffee to
London. 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. In 1864, the year after Le Lacheur's death,
it was resolved to build the first Protestant church in
Costa Rica. 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. It
became unofficially known as the 'Iron Church'. When it was
rebuilt in 1937 with more traditional materials, a memorial
plaque was erected to Le Lacheur with an inscription which
includes the phrase ' by whose exertions public Protestant
worship was established in this Republic '. 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]. Army and Defense of Costa Rican When William Walker,
an American filibuster, attempted to invade Costa Rica in
1856, the Costa Rican government declared war. 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.[2] He
is buried in Highgate Cemetery in London. There is a
Memorial to Captain William Le Lacheur of Guernsey in the
Church of the Good Shepherd, San José, Costa Rica.
Postage stamps have been issued commemorating his
achievements by both his native Guernsey (1997) and Costa
Rica (1963). Costa Rica Coffee: Captain William Le Lacheur
of Guernsey started the 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.
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Mission Grounds Gourmet Coffee was founded by George Moore
is an IT Sales engineer by trade.The non profit gourmet
coffee called Mission Grounds Gourmet Coffee -
http://www.missiongrounds.com It donates all its profits to
helping orphans and impoverished children. THE Costa Rica
Coffee and the best gourmet coffee in the world -surely the
most satisfying cup of coffee in the world.
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