We started out the morning with another arepa de huevo (a stand right outside of our hostel was selling them- we had to!), then started our walk through the beautiful landscape to the area of the coffee plantations.

After 45 minutes of (downhill) walking, we reached our first coffee plantation, called Don Elias. Here, we took a tour of the family owned coffee plantation and tried a cup of their coffee at the end. Even Cassie drank some!

 

Next stop was a larger coffee farm called Ocaso. Our tour didnt start until 2, so we had some time to kill before. We decided to hit up the cafe for some lunch and coffee before our tour started. The area was beautiful with a great view and lots of birds. They even called us over to the counter so that we could watch them make our coffee!

 

Finally it was time for the tour. We started with a general overview of Colombian coffee, followed by planting then picking of some coffee beans, then following the coffee through the entire process. We learned about peaberries (coffee berries that only have one seed instead of two, thus the coffee is more concentrated), about honey coffees (that are not washed before they are dried and it makes the coffee sweeter), and that many of the most popular coffees (low quality) use lentils to supplement the bulk of the coffee.

 

The tour was extremely informative, and at the end, we did a tasting class. We started with a taste test of general tastes (sour, sweet, salty), followed by a smell test of different aromas. Then we started comparing different coffees based on multiple different categories (smell, aroma, body, flavor, etc.). At the end, we tried the same coffee beans prepared 2 different ways: with a Chemex and with a Japanese Siphon. It was super interesting to taste the difference between the two.

 

After we finished with the tasting, we walked back into town.

 

For dinner we went out to a great meal of steaks (for about $10 each), then we had another drink at the Mojiteria before heading back home to go to sleep.