Coffee arrived in Costa Rica as early as 1779 and within 50 years it was generating more revenue than any other crop, but by the 1830s they were growing more coffee than the ships sailing south could take. And there was virtually no infrastructure to transport even a small amount of green coffee to the east coast of Costa Rica (where London was only 5 000 miles away). The distribution problems of Costa Rican coffee producers reached the ears of an up-and-coming shipping magnate named William Le Lacheur in 1841 and on Christmas Day 1841 he sailed The Monarch into the port of Puntarenas, Costa Rica, thus beginning a long and mutually beneficial relationship. During a voyage to London in late 1843, The Monarch carried more than half a million pounds of Costa Rican coffee.