Hacienda Venecia, Colombia 🇨🇴 

Coffee tour today! Cooked scrambled eggs for breakfast and set off for coffee. We spent some time understanding the washing process that Colombia maintains due to weather rather than the drying method. The good quality beans are all exported and then roasted in country of export. We did some tasting and I can see the washing process produces more acid coffee rather than the rich berry flavours that I prefer.

The second part was in the fields, understanding more about the plants. Plants will yield fruit forever but they improve this by replanting every 22 years. They have a constant harvest due to peticipitaon and each plant will yield 3kg of fruit a year. It takes 5kg of fruit to produce 600g of finished export quality coffee beans. A variable size of pickers harvest the plants, picking an average of 45kg a day each and earning between £1-£2 per kilogram.

The final part of the tour explained the roasting process. We got to smell the beans along the way, getting to the first ‘crack’ for a medium roast and then a second ‘crack’ at a higher temperature for a darker roast.

All my learning done, we sat down to a simple chicken soup and salad for lunch. The group was quite sociable, so I hung round by the pool in the main house, heading back to my cheaper accommodation before dark. Hector and Marieke had been out hiking and I offered to cook, so I created another pasta dish for us. It was just us three in the hostel tonight as we settled in with a few cold beers.