Private Coffee Farm Tour in Medellin: Real Authentic Experience

From your hotel we head to the coffee farm in our comfortable private car. Once there, a charming married couple of farmers welcomes us with a delicious cup of coffee. While you are enjoying a nice cup of coffee, the expert gives you an informative introduction into the world of Colombian coffee. Feel free to ask any questions. As you listen and participate of the conversation, we begin to give you the coffee we produce in different brewing methods and then we explain the different flavor notes in each of them, so you learn to differenciate the sour, bitter and sweet characteristics of the coffee. After this very entertaining introduction, we continue with the next activity: planting the coffee seeds in the seedbed as we explain the timeline for each stage when they are growing into a tree. After we have more context we begin the walk around the coffee plantation. Before we do it we provide you buckets, hats and rain boots to do the activity with a proper outfit.

Picking the Coffee Beans We start by picking the beans ourselves as the farmer guides us in the process and provides tips about how they should be picked, how this task is done by women and men alike, wages, lifestyle and everything about coffee pickers. At the end of this activity, we will weight your load to see who did the best job and continue to next step: Depulping, Fermenting and Washing the coffee At this stage the skin is removed leaving the slimy beans apart. Once they have been separated, the beans go through a fermentation process where they will lose their slimy surface (mucilage) and continue to the next stage: Drying the coffee beans The beans need to be completely dry in order to be processed. This process is extremely  important to ensure good quality. To do this, there is usually a tent called Marquesina that keeps and increases the heat inside drying the beans faster. This process depends highly on the weather but is usually somewhere between 2 to 6 days.

When the coffee beans are completely dry we need to remove the husk. So we use an artisanal threshing machine to do that. When that process is done, the coffee is called "Green Coffee". This is the stage at which most of the Colombian coffee is exported. However, at the farm the process goes further with the roasting process having 3 different levels depending on your taste. Highly roasted, medium-high and medium. All of them are roasted at 200 degrees Celsius (392 F). The next process is the grinder, where we put the brown roasted beans to grind. The last process is packing the fresh coffee you just processed (which you can buy at the farm for a good price). As a reward for helping us to produce and process our coffee we'll have a delicious snack (included) waiting for you at the table. You will surely have the most authentic experience in Medellin just by learning and enjoying at this coffee farm with its owners. So, why not join us in this fun and informative experience?