La Flor de Montenegro transports us with its story to the heyday of tobacco production in Puriscal, back in the 1960s, a story seldom told but well known among the locals. At that time, tobacco was cultivated in the nine districts that make up Puriscal, a mountainous town with irregular terrain in the province of San José, which at its peak supplied 46% of Costa Rica’s tobacco production.
The mountains of Puriscal were meticulously prepared by local farmers for tobacco planting, revealing the vibrant black color of its soil, fertile and full of nutrients. This fact made it common for locals and outsiders to refer to Puriscal as “Monte Negro” (Black Montuntain), due to the black color of the mountain soil that could be seen from afar when traveling to the Pacific coast of the country to deliver tobacco for export.
In the summer season, between December and March, most of the mountains were covered with tobacco plants, which, more than plants, seemed like flowers sprouting from the earth. Today, La Flor de Montenegro nostalgically reminds me of those plants on the mountains of Puriscal that we long called flowers.