Coffee museum in Asserí, Costa Rica

Coffee museum in Asserí brings back forgotten past
By José Pablo Ramírez Vindas
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Long ago the steep slopes of Aserrí were covered in emerald green coffee plants. The farmers used rudimentary machines to cultivate their “golden” crop. Today, many have forgotten the history, and huge companies have taken over much of the industry.

Luis Alfaro Zeledón wants to bring the story back and remind the children of Vuelta de Jorco about the work of their grandparents and great grandparents.

Alfaro, who was born in San José and raised in California, is the owner of Haciendo Río Jorco, a 70 hectare plantation in the mountains of Aserrí. He is constructing a museum that features the story of his grandfather, Jorge Zeledón Castro, and the birth of the coffee industry in the area.

More >>

At long last, free Starbucks Wi-fi – but read the fine print

As promised back in February, Starbucks on Tuesday finally unveiled its new, AT&T-powered Wi-Fi service that gives customers free wireless Internet access under certain conditions.

If you've got one of those ubiquitous Starbucks pre-paid cards, you can register it and, as long as it's got $5 on it and you use it once a month, you can have a single session of 2 hours of free Wi-Fi each day.

If you're an AT&T DSL customer, you have free Wi-Fi, without any time limits.

There are some indications that iPhone customers may get free Wi-Fi as well. For a brief period of time last month, iPhone users were able to sign on, enter their numbers and start surfing. However, the gateway was abruptly closed - apparently its opening was an error. Nevertheless, keep an eye on Steve Jobs' keynote on Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, where the next-generation iPhone is expected to be launched. There's a good chance he'll announce free Starbucks Wi-Fi there.

For those folks who don't fit into these categories, there's still relatively good news. The new AT&T deal also dramatically lowers prices at Starbucks for paid Wi-Fi, as low as $3.99 for two hours. That's much cheaper than T-Mobile's old rate of $6 per hour, but you'd be a lot smarter to just get a Starbucks card and slap $5 on it, which gets you two hours of free Wi-Fi a day for a month.

More >>

Smucker to Buy P&G's Folgers Coffee for $3 Billion

By Heather Burke and Carol Wolf

June 4 (Bloomberg) -- J.M. Smucker Co., the maker of Smucker's jams and Jif peanut butter, will buy Procter & Gamble Co.'s Folgers unit for about $3 billion in stock to become the biggest U.S. producer of coffee.

More >>