Picking coffee beans for Starbucks a family tradition

By Manuel Valdes

Special to The Seattle Times

SAN JOSÉ PROVINCE, Costa Rica — Roberto Naranjo and his wife, Victoria Zúñiga-Naranjo, shake their heads when they remember life during the coffee crisis in the late 1990s.

The Naranjos had to choose between buying farming equipment and paying workers. They had to choose between maintaining their land and buying fertilizer. And debt mounted.

Then Starbucks arrived in the 2000s, and began buying coffee from the cooperative the Naranjos belong to — CoopeTarrazú — and life improved.

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