Columbian coffee discoveries

Me and my wife are both coffee lovers.  So when we were in our last visit in Colombia we couldn't resist to go and visit a coffee farm to understand how coffee is made.  

After a lot of research we decided to visit a farm in the Manizales area, called "Hacienda Venecia".  You can view their website here : http://www.haciendavenecia.com

We stayed in a modest and relaxing hostel for 3 days in the middle of a beautiful and impressive 200 acre coffee farm.

The land was great to walk around in the warm weather, enjoy the beautiful nature and amazing wildlife.

GROWING THE COFFEE PLANTS

We spent a full day to learn about how coffee is produced from growing it to the roasting of the beans. Our coffee day discovery started by learning about the plantation and how it works.

It takes 1 year to grow a baby plant before it is ready to be planted in the field. It then takes another 2 years before the plant can produce fruits.

The fruits are collected by hand by Colombian workers from September to November. The workers live on the farm during this period and then move to different areas of Colombia who collect the fruits in other periods of the year.

BEAN EXTRACTION AND DRYING OF THE BEANS

Once the beans are collected they are put inside a machinery system that takes the bean out from inside the fruit.

Then the beans are dried and packed in big bags ready to be exported.

Colombia is the third biggest coffee bean exporter in the world. They mainly export the green beans who are then roasted in different roasters across the world.

ROASTING

There is typically 3 different roasting types ; mild, medium and dark. Depending on your taste if you prefer bitter, sour, strong, etc.. the type of roasts change the taste. The Colombians Coffee farms roast some beans for local consumption but since Colombians are not big coffee drinkers, they keep few for local consumption.