Salento, Colombia 🇨🇴
Great sleep last night, back in the country air. We are heading on a coffee tour today, whilst I did one a few days ago, Lesley hasn’t and I figure you can never know too much about coffee. We head down to the square from the hostel where the Willy jeeps are waiting. The jeeps were actually sold off by the Americans at the end of World War II cheaply and are really popular in this area of the country for transporting people and coffee. We bump into Chris who was on our bus from Medellin and invite him to join us. We get our tickets but the jeep seats are full so I make Leslie pull the age card whilst I stand on the back and hold on for dear life.
It’s only about 20 minutes down the road until we reach the farm of El Ocaso. Our guide, Maria is very bubbly and knowledgeable. The first step is understanding the coffee cherry and how the plants grow. It has has two beans inside each fruit and they are coated in a jelly which is surprisingly sweet.
We are then each given a basket which we tied around our waist like a traditional coffee picker and head off into the plants to see how many fruits we can pick. I am super competitive, but still only manage a handful. Next up we see the separation machinery and then the kiln and tunnel drying methods. The beans are dehusked externally but all the waste is reused, the husks fuel the kiln and the cherry skins are used as compost so nothing goes to waste. We learn a bit about roasting, but they don’t do this on the farm. Then we can take a seat, learn how to brew coffee and finally drink a tasty cup. I actually prefer this tour to my previous experience, even if the farm is only 18 hectares it was really engaging.
We hop back onto a jeep, and I thankfully secure a seat this time as we head back to town. Chris is an interesting guy, so we invite him to dinner before parting. Lesley and I climb the steps at the end of town to the mirador before having a good mooch in the shops.
It is a rainy night as we sit in a patio for dinner, but the company is good and we have a fabulous steak in blackberry & coffee sauce washed down with a excellent red wine. Thank goodness my stomach is better!
