Costa Rican coffee transport carts are made from wood and are called traditional ox carts, or carreta. This is the product of Costa Rica's most famous craftsmanship and dates back to the mid-nineteenth century.
Cossa Rica's coffee transport cart is made from cockroach-colored wood, has round wheels and can be towed. The cart has a 2-compartment lid. The front of the coffee transport cart has a long wooden bar used for pulling. Costa Ricans call them traditional oxcarts, or carreta. This is the product of Costa Rica's most famous craft. Dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, oxcarts were used to transport coffee beans from Costa Rica's central valley over the mountains to Puntarenas on the Pacific coast, a journey requiring ten to fifteen oxcarts used spokeless wheels, a hybrid of the discs used by the Aztecs and the wheels introduced by the Spanish, to traverse mud without getting stuck.
In many cases, oxcarts were the family's only means of transportation, and also served as a symbol of their social status. The tradition of painting and decorating oxcarts began in the early twentieth century. Initially, each region of Costa Rica had its own design, allowing the origin of the vehicle to be identified by the patterns painted on the wheels.
Since oxcarts became obsolete as a means of transport, the demand for them has been decreasing, which
means the number of artisans trained to produce and decorate bullock carts has declined sharply over the past decades.
In 2005, the Oxcart was included in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.