I traveled to Medellin for some coffee tasting and local culture in Comuna 13. Then we cruised down the Magdalena River from Barranquilla to Cartagena on the beautiful new AMAMelodia before finishing with a cooking class in the walled city of Cartagena and a day trip out to the Rosario Islands.
Coffee lemonade at coffee plantation outside Medellin (Mary Curry)
We arrived in Medellin, where our private guide, Andres, was waiting at the airport to take us up into the cloud forest where coffee is grown on the mountains surrounding Medellin. It's said that the best coffee grows at the highest elevations and Medellin has an advantage with so many prime cloudforest areas at 5000-6000 ft around town that provide ideal growing conditions.
Once at the coffee plantation, we were greeted with a cold beverage- lemonade, peppermint, and coffee! It may sound unusual, but my mom, not usually a coffee drinker, downed at least a few cups of this delicious treat. We hadn't eaten much all day, so the sweet family that runs the plantation prepared 'fianbre', a plantain leaf filled with ground beef, grilled pork, beans, rice, egg, plantain, and chorizo.
Traditional lunch at coffee plantation outside Medellin (Mary Curry)
After our feast, Antonio, the owner of the plantation, had us try his plantation's distinctly fruity coffee beans brewed using two different techniques, each requiring a specific temperature and brew time for peak flavor. He had us smell the beans and talked about the difference between fragrance (the smell of the beans) vs aroma (the smell of the freshly brewed coffee. His daughter was currently featuring their coffee in a nationwide competition in Bogota.
From here, we walked into the plantation where his son, Juan Pablo, showed us the coffee seedlings and let us each plant our own seed. From seed to harvest, it takes about 30 months with precise steps to protect the coffee plant along the way. We were given baskets and harvested the ripe red beans (which aren't actually 'beans' but seeds). We took these into their processing shed, where the beans are spun through a machine that removes the outer husk, and they are sorted for quality. Nearly everything is done by hand, from picking to sorting. The beans are traditionally fermented in water for a couple of days and then put in the greenhouse to dry. Most Colombian coffee is then shipped out in its raw, unroasted state. Andres told us the reasons were twofold: 1) buyers wanted to roast the beans themselves as they could pay less for raw beans, and 2) the beans last longer with peak flavor.
