San Jose City Tour & Tasting - Costa Rican Coffee and Chocolate
Description
This San Jose city tour is for curious travelers who want to taste the culture, not just hear about it. It’s fun, informative, and delicious; the kind of experience that sticks with you (and your palate) long after the last bite. With our Foodie San Jose City Tour, you’ll leave not only with great photos, but with a deeper understanding of what Costa Rica is made of, its people, its flavors, and its proud, poetic capital city.
Tour Options
Itinerary
• Start at the National Theatre with the story of how coffee funded the city’s most iconic building • Visit the historic Steinvorth building, where you’ll sip coffee cherry tea, specialty coffee and sample artisanal chocolate while learning about the cultural significance of cacao • End with a savory local bite (like a handmade empanada or chifrijo) at a spot filled with flavor and local life • Along the way, stroll through plazas, parks, murals and stories that bring San José to life.
Highlights
What's included
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Travelers should have at least a moderate level of physical fitness
- Wheelchair accessible
- Minimum drinking age is 18 years
- May be operated by a multi-lingual guide
- Please advise any specific dietary requirements at time of booking
- Wear confortable shoes
- Don't eat too much before the tour so you can taste all the meals and drinks included
Reviews(23)
The tour guide never showed up so trip was aborted. Trip advisor being the platform they are sent a notice at 7.33 pm to me when the trip was scheduled for 1pm telling me the trip was cancelled because the tour guide had an emergency. Mind you it was our only day in San Jose and we wanted to experience this. This really put a damper to our vacation and would probably not use Trip Advisor again to book another tour as one would have imagined that they would contract reliable and dependable tour operators to align with.
We are truly sorry that your first day in Costa Rica was affected by this unexpected situation. We completely understand how disappointing this must have been, especially since this was your only day in San José and you were looking forward to the experience. On the day of the tour, our assigned guide had an unexpected last-minute emergency and was unable to attend. As soon as we received the cancellation notice, we contacted you directly via WhatsApp, informed you of the situation, and immediately proceeded with the refund. Unfortunately, due to your travel schedule, it was not possible to reschedule the tour. While this was a circumstance outside of our control, we sincerely regret the inconvenience it caused. This is not the level of service we strive to provide, and we take situations like this very seriously. We would also like to respectfully clarify that this was an isolated emergency, not a reflection of our company’s reliability or commitment to our guests. Foodie Tours Costa Rica has operated for years with professionalism, care, and a strong commitment to creating meaningful local experiences. Again, we sincerely apologize for the disappointment and inconvenience. We hope future travelers understand that unforeseen emergencies can happen in any service-based operation, and that our team responded as quickly and responsibly as possible once we were informed.
We had an amazing time with Iva! The coffee and food was amazing but it was really her knowledge and friendliness that we loved. We started our first time in Costa Rica with this tour and it was great to begin our trip with an understanding of tourism, economy, food and culture.
Knowledgeable and personable tour guide, with fun stops and info on coffee, chocolate and the city. Tips on places to visit and where to eat.
Thank you so much for your kind words and for joining our San Jose City Tour Food Tasting – Coffee and Chocolate with Foodie Tours Costa Rica. We’re delighted to hear that you enjoyed the experience and that our knowledgeable and personable guide made the tour both fun and informative. Sharing the story behind Costa Rican coffee, chocolate, and the cultural highlights of San Jose is a big part of what we love to do. We’re also happy you found the local tips on where to eat and places to visit useful—helping travelers connect with authentic food spots and local culture is at the heart of every Foodie Tours Costa Rica experience. Thank you for touring with us, and we truly hope to welcome you again on another San Jose food tour or culinary experience in Costa Rica. Warm regards, Foodie Tours Costa Rica Team
My coworker and I had the most amazing tour with Ivannia. She was so friendly and knowledgeable. What a great way to see San Jose and learn, culture, history and experience real cacao, coffee, cacique and bites. Would definitely book another tour here. They really go above and beyond and really know their stuff. Truly a great way to learn the city and great spots for the rest of our trip. My coworker has been here 30 times and said he learned more in the first 15 min about Costa Rica and its history than he has in all his visits. Highly recommend
Thank you so much for recommending our San Jose Food City Tour Costa Rica - cacao, coffee and local tastings 🙌🏽 We will be glad to organize more foodie cultural experiences for you and your team mates. Visit our website and social media to learn more about foodie experiences 🤩
Adriana's Farm to Table foodie tour of San Jose was outstanding! She was gracious host who provided not only provided a lot of knowledge about the food we ate, where it came from and how it was prepared, but also provided insight into the Costa Rican culture and the various buildings and plants we encountered on the tour through Barrio Escalante. The specialty coffee stop was very informative and Oscar did a great job in explaining all the different methods used to provide unique coffee tastes. The food/restaurants Adriana selected were phenomenal! She also arranged for each restaurant Chef to provide further insights into the food we ate that really added to the whole experience. We left the tour very full and satisfied. This is a tour I highly recommend and will do again!
Thank you so much for your review 🙏🏽
We did this tour with some leftover time in San Jose after a yoga retreat and before our flights out that night. Our tour guide, David, was an absolute GEM. He went above and beyond to share his knowledge about the food, the city, and Costa Rica with us and was especially accommodating to our needs and requests. The best part was that it didn't feel like a stuffy, touristy tour, but rather that David was an old friend showing us the city and food he loves. It was so casual, conversational and fun. We laughed A LOT. Thanks, David!
Fantastic experience- I can only recommend! Adriana is a lovely guide and everything was impeccable.
The tour, IF the vendor hadn't rejected our booking and lied about why, would probably have been good. We booked a Sunday evening tour 5 days in advance, and three days later got a "rejected by vendor" notice. I figured that Paypal or the card I'd paid with from my Paypal list hadn't worked for them, so I immediately rebooked for the same day/time directly with my usual travel card. THE MORNING OF THE BOOKING, they texted me that they "couldn't book through TripAdvisor/Viator" but I should visit their website and provided a link. I replied that they should just stop advertising on TripAdvisor, and THEY RESPONDED WITH A LIE: TripAdvisor had given them only two days' notice, so they hadn't had time to check availability with their guides and restaurants (though their listing showed availability at our date/time), and TripAdvisor automatically cancels if the vendor hasn't confirmed after two days. So why did they cancel three days later the first time, when they'd had 5 days' notice? I'm not sure what this vendor's problem is, but they either [1] just doesn't want to pay the Viator fee, so let your booking auto-reject and text you to try again on their website, or [2] there weren't enough people signed up for our date/time, so it wasn't profitable enough for them. Either way, THEY'RE LIARS and abusing those of us who use TripAdvisor. Don't even try booking through Viator or TripAdvisor
We would like to clarify that we didn't reject any booking manually (as we explained via sms), we saw the booking request notification the day after, and immediately we started to check the availability of our services as our tours are 100% personalized for each booking. The booking was rejected automatically by Viator's system, we do have limited time to accept a booking request. That week this happened to a few booking requests, we had a high demand for bookings on those dates and we do not have our own guides, we are a very small company that was seriously affected by pandemia and we still can't hire our own guides full time, they also work for other companies. When we were sure we could confirm your tour we tried to contact you to offer the tour. We never rejected your booking, on the other side, we made an effort to still organize your tour and contact you. You sent us a very aggressive and unfriendly private message insulting us for trying to find a way to offer the experience. We find it rude that you leave us a bad review of a tour that you didn't experience, assuming that we are lying, and completely defaming our work and effort.
Loved the tour, Adri was very knowledgeable and the places were very unique and delicious, definitely a great tour to spend an evening in San José and discover the secret gems of the city
Adriana picked us up at our hotel and drove to our first stop. We had so much fun all evening at each of the 4 locations we went to. We started with coffee tasting and education, then vegan appetizers, main course and last cocktails. It was the funnest thing we did in the city of San Jose. I would do it again!
