In America, today is known as Thanksgiving but here in Colombia there was no sight of any turkeys. Instead, we visited an exclusive coffee plantation called Hacienda San Alberto. It was started by a family that brought the rigorous quality of wineries to coffee production. We had a tour of the whole process, from cultivation to drying. They have quality control whereby they only accept the best and ripe beans. They also have a five step process. They clearly market this innovation and their coffee does taste good. We had a cup prepared with Chemex in the beginning and then one using a vacuum siphon method. I think that latter tool will be my next coffee toy! We also had a coffee baptism! We started by going through some taste and smelling exercises. I was terrible guessing the right characteristics of each sample. Then we observed the infusion of two coffees -- San Alberto's and another. You could clearly taste the differences in the blind test. I had a long conversation with the owner at the end, exchanging stories and getting tips. I'm going to refer several of the local coffee shops to him... Maybe this coffee will end up at one of them soon!
We had a short lunch stop where I tried a local typical dish. I think it was skirt steak with rice, avocados, plantains, salsa, and potatoes with a light soup on the side. It was very good albeit on the large side.
Our last stop was at a botanical garden. We had a guided tour. The gardens were quite large. The highlights were the butterfly enclosure, the hummingbird feeders, as well as the bird feeder viewing area. We saw a capivera walk by, too! That's the world's largest rodent, the size of a cat!
A fun but long day. We were joined at the finca by a French couple. The plan is that they'll be coming on the tour with us tomorrow...
No comments:
Post a Comment