FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Colombian Coffee

Los Correa coffee farm

Pablo took us on a walkabout of Jardín, naturally beginning with a tuk tuk that would take us high up to a get a panoramic view of Jardín. The roads were so steep that we did at times wonder if we would have to push. Never doubt a local! All 3 tuk tuks made it. The tuk tuk ride had a dual purpose, we were at the station for the Teleferico La Garrucha. What Mal aptly described as the lovechild of a shopping trolley and a coffin would be transporting us over the deep ravine back into town. We were advised once we picked our position in the box we could not move!

When we got off at the other end, we picked up a pet for the morning! We named his Shadow as he shadowed us for the entirety of our walking tour, even coming into church with us. Pablo, as usual, made our walk interesting with many many short stops of interest. By 1045, we were back at our hotel ready for our 1045 transfer to begin our coffee farm tour.

Breakfast room. Love the simplicity and the beautiful tiles

Farewell gift from our hotel! When you're in the coffee region, the gift was of course coffee!

Tuk tuk was cosy even for 2 normal sized adults!

View of Jardin from the top

That is our transport down!

A few photos for perspective...

Don't move!

Finding houses to match our outfits

Made just for Elliot

Houses had hand-made timber railing and were all brightly coloured, some with beautiful murals

Definitely rural

Paths over 250 years old, that still connects the villages. This one goes to Tamesis

A view of beautiful Jardin from the main square

We popped into a fruit shop for a quick lesson! This is the tree tomato

Lulo

Galupa, a type of passionfruit

Shadow!

He followed us everywhere!

Snack break! Thanks Pablo!

Before I bore everyone with facts...a few important takeaways from our coffee farm visit:

1. We learnt A LOT. From how the coffee is grown, to how it is made. It made us think hard about how much we pay for our coffee, and who keeps the profit...

2. It was FUN! The experience was simple and our host family at the farm was warm and welcoming even though he did have to go through Pablo translate. We didn't just get a "sanitised" version, Julian let us wander through the actual coffee plants. I was worried that the children were going to destroy their crops and livelihood!

Here are some interesting facts:

We are in the Coffee Triangle of Colombia. Most foreigners would probably have heard of Armenia, Salento and Pereira. We are further north.
It takes up to 3 years from seed before a arabica coffee plant can be harvested
Colombian coffee are all hand-picked because of its hilly terrain
It takes 50 "cherries" to make one small cup of coffee
The workers get paid USD 0.25 for 1 kg of "cherries". The family's profit margin is slim at best
This region sells their coffee to Nespresso
Females are better at picking the beans because they are more detail oriented!
The traditional female coffee harvesters are called Chapolera and their attire is what you see in the movie Encanto!

As implied above, Julian took us through the process of how we get our coffee from right from seed. They are trying to improve their profit margin by selling a ready made product to cut out the middle man. Usually beans are sold "green" ie. unroasted. If we could have bought their coffee to help them out, we would have. Unfortunately we were limited by our remaining travel. As the bags were not vacuum sealed they would go stale by the time we got home.

The rest of the day was on the road back to Medellín. Sadly, we had to farewell Pablo and Jesus. Pablo really was the best. There were so many little things that made our time here so much more enjoyable. We leave the Colombian Andes tomorrow and fly to the Caribbean coast. Wish this heat intolerant family luck with the heat!!

Good old fashioned fun. No stuffy rules, no seat belt!

Expensive Australian labour...

From flower to "cherry" would take 9 months. The darker the bean, the better.

The only time a coffee plant leaves are round is its first 2 leaves. It looks like a butterfly - Chapola, hence the ladies picking the beans are called Chapolera!