Culture, health, gender and coffee drinking: a Costa Rican perspective

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to identify the effect of culture, gender and perceived health benefits on coffee drinking in Costa Rica. Design/methodology/approach - A telephone survey (n = 1,328) was conducted in the province of San Jose, where the capital city is located. This location has a population of 845,000, with a 99 per cent, confidence, 1 per cent error and 50 per cent response distribution, the total usable surveys were 1,199. The analytical procedure, consisted of three steps; instrument validation, consumer profile development and developing ordinal logistic modelling. Findings - The total a was estimated at 0.71. The coffee consumer profile is described but consisted of 52 per cent female and 48 per cent male with 77 per cent receiving a secondary education. The factors influencing coffee drinking by Costa Ricans, are in order of importance: first gender followed by family as a source of information, health, amount spent, aroma, anti-migraine effect, family tradition, flavour and energizing effect. H1 - health, culture and gender influence the frequency of coffee consumption in Costa Rica is accepted; H2 - the importance of the health factor varies with gender is accepted and H3 - culture is an important factor in determining coffee consumption is also accepted. Research limitations/implications - The study was only conducted in the province of San Jose. This is considered the urban heart of the country urban but its finding should not be extrapolated to the entire country. A rural/urban comparison may be needed. Practical implications - The results suggest that a country wide survey may be useful in providing information for differential coffee marketing strategies. Originality/value - The material is the first of its kind in the Central American region and may help orient other countries of the area.