On our third day in town, we took a day trip to nearby Chinchina for a tour of a coffee plantation Cafe Hacienda Guayabal. We walked about 1km uphill to the hacienda from the highway where the bus dropped us off and were welcomed by the señora of the household and some fresh, piping hot coffee. Then umbrellas were distributed and we were led around the farm by the young son Ignacio who knew more about coffee than all the knowledge I have combined. He explained everything to us from the planting, the growing, the picking, to the roasting. Aaron, with his fairly extensive knowledge of wine production, was amazed at how similar the coffee process is to grape vineyards. Apparently, Colombian coffee is a much higher quality than most other regions in the world just due to the location and the land. For example, in most countries, huge machines go through the vineyards and pick the beans off the plants, then dump it all into more machines for processing. But in Colombia, the coffee region is so mountainous that it is impossible for a machine to do any of the work, and therefore humans go through and select only the mature beans, creating a purer and tastier product. Ignacio took us through the entire process and at the end we were greeted with, of course, a fresh brewed cup of coffee. And not quite as expected, 3 tasty empañadas.

Although the tour was extremely interesting and informational, I think the most exciting part was that the tour was entirely in Spanish and Aaron and I understood everything. In fact, the other people on our tour were new to South America and had us translate the entire thing – and translate their questions for Ignacio. We were even able to ask Ignacio about the rare African type of coffee that savannah animals chew up, excrete, and then coffee farmers process the, um, result, and why that makes better coffee. (The answer, by the way, is “no clue”.)