Hacienda Valencia

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This place is kinda like camp. They have an activity board and everything!  Our agent signed us up for the coffee tour this morning.  I sat through some of the introduction and could not see myself going through with the rest of the tour.  To be quiet honest, I have a bit of cold, and denial had caught up to me.  My head is clogged and my nose is running and I sneeze something awful.  So I bailed out while I had the chance.  

Great idea. I was very happy sitting by the pool all day. It was just me and the young German couple and the iguanas.  There were three all toll. I left the camera with Geoff for the coffee tour. Not being too proficient with the phone camera, I managed to capture one of them trying to take a dip in the pool.  What a luxury not to have to do anything!  The tour ended late and they didn't get back in till after 1pm.  We had lunch around the pool with our new Canadian friends. Some more lounging around and now we are relaxing in our beautiful room. 

Geoff got some good insights on coffee. So I will let him take over from here:

I got to see the differences between a small coffee producer and the large one I saw today. One of the main differences is the use of machines, not to harvest the beans, but to process them after harvest. Small farmers, which make up the vast majority of Colombian growers, use large amounts of water to clean the beans of the pulp inside the skins, while farms with machines can use less water under pressure to do the same thing. Drying by ovens is more cost effective for lager producers than drying smaller amounts of beans in the sun. Either way, the result is the same.

The highest grade beans are exported, while lower grades are for local consumption. A tax is levied on the sale of exported beans that goes back to the framers in the form of infrastructure (i.e. better roads, schools, health care, etc.). Traveling through the country we saw the best roads are where coffee is grown!

Starbucks, for example, is a huge importer of Colombian beans. Because of the volume of coffee they sell in the US they can't rely on only Colombian beans and must blend them with other, and usually inferior beans from elsewhere. Drinking a latte, cappuccino, or other flavored coffee may taste good, but it only masks the true flavor. Most of our coffee is over-roasted to minimize inconsistencies in blended beans.

In Colombia Starbucks sells coffee but they must buy and sell only the highest grade. You won't get that in the US. Our best chance of getting pure Colombian is to only buy packages that have the triangle logo showing the mountains, a farmer, and a mule. It will not necessarily be marked as Fair Trade, but because of the growers are organized in the Federation of National Coffee Growers the effect is the same.


So there you have it - everything you wanted to know about coffee.  Almost time to get ready for head for the dining hall.  Tomorrow we make our way to Hacienda Termales la Quinta for some horseback riding, waterfalls, and hot springs. Sure hope this cold clears up.

Next time ... Back on the Road