*Desto3 thanks guest poster, Lynne Shaw, for her travelogue content.
The Colombian coffee Region (Spanish: Eje Cafetero), also known as the Coffee Triangle, is a part of the Colombian Paisa region in the rural area of Colombia, famous for growing and production of a majority of Colombian coffee, considered by many to be the best coffee in the world. There are three departments in the area: Caldas, Quindío and Risaralda. The most visited cities are Manizales, Armenia and Pereira. Pereira is the largest town in the coffee region, a 35 minute flight from Medellin.
Colombia is the third top producer in the world, after Brazil and Vietnam. There are several former coffee plantations that have been converted to haciendas for those who want to visit the region and learn about the coffee making process. One of the best is Hacienda Castilla, dating back to 1716.
The whole area is very lush and tropical, with many beautiful haciendas, well-preserved villages, and of course, great coffee. The area seems relatively untouched by tourism. The coffee region was spared the domestic conflicts of the past decades; no para-military, no guerrillas, just a few drug lords.
One can visit a real working plantation and hacienda nearby, owned by the family of Jesus Martin. Demonstrations are given there about the first few steps in processing the coffee. The separation of the beans inside the “cherry, and then the soaking and the drying of the beans. The rest of the steps are done in a small factory in a nearby town. I learned the difference between “good” and “bad” beans, and was given a pail and guided into the trees to pick only the good berries. I worked in a group of 4, and after 30 minutes, our group had picked 1.5 lbs of beans for a grand total of about $0.10 in salary. Our reward, however, was a delicious buffet lunch served under shade trees and wonderful Colombia Arabica coffee for dessert.
Where is “Juan Valdez,” the iconic personification of Colombian coffee, I wondered? I was very disappointed to hear that the cowboy I remember from the early days of TV was not Colombian at all, but a Cuban actor. Lo and behold, a perfect facsimile of Juan was standing on a corner with two donkeys loaded down with coffee, waiting to have his picture taken with the tourists. It turned out that he was the perennial winner of the Juan Valdez look alike contest held each year.
