As I mentioned, I stayed in Medellin at Hannes* and Petra*s house. Hannes exports quality coffee to Europe and I learned a lot about coffee from him.
The coffe which you buy at the supermarket iss a mixture of many different kinds from many different large farms where the coffee is grown. It is sprayed with insecticides and harvested in a farm from all the trees on the same day altthough the coffee on a tree does not ripen all at the same time, so part of the coffee is not yet ripe. The coffee is sorted out, the worse quality (that contains damaged beans, bugs etc.) coffee remains in the country from which it is exported and the better quality is exported, for example, to Europe. It is roasted in Europe, because the European countries charge a fine if already roasteed coffee is imported, as they want to protect their own roasters.
Hannes explained me that there are about 100 differentt kinds of coffee and 2 of these are used to make cooffee to drink, the Arabica and the Robusta, and of these there are many different kinds. The coffee from each farm has a different taste as the taste depends on the kid of coffee, the soil, climate etc. We never get to know all these different tastes as we always get mixtures.
Hannes took me to visit the only organic coffee finca (farm) in Antioquia, outt of 93.000 coffee fincas in Antioquia! How sad. We travelled by car about 1,5 hours until we reached a vry little village in the municipality of Titiribi. There he parked his car and we descended a very steep way about 400 m. in height until we reached this finca. This picture is after we had descended for about 30 minutes and stood still a bit higher than the farmhouse which you can see on the steep slope in the background. Behind the farmhouse all the way up and left and right there are coffee plantations.
it is aamazing on what steep slopes coffee and other plants are grown here. I can't imagine how people can stand on these slopes to harvest the coffee. On this finca only the ripe coffee is harvested, so they have toharvest about every 2 weeks from the same trees, until all the coffee is ripe.
The view from the farm is spectacular. whern we hiked down it was still very foggy and rainy but slowly the fog lifted and we could see the scenery, without the peaks of the mountains which were still in the clouds.
Wild Heliconias grow everywhere on the way
and here the farmhouse with the mountains in the background
besides coffee there are lots of fruits growing on the farm
Look at this very cute idea: pots for plants made out of bottle caps. Isn't that a grrat idea? People here are so creative, they use everything, not like us, where so much is thrown away.
On the way back the fog was gone and we could see the wonderful scenery.
we stopped in the little town of Titirribi for a delicious lunch.
The scenery on the way home was fabulous.
I love that mountain.
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