-Mac The coffee you had in Colombia Mac was probably sweetened with panella. You probably saw that, aside from the increasing popularity in gourmet drinks from branded cafes, the typical Colombian drink is small, they call it tinto. Most popular brand for gourmet drinks Is probably Juan Valdez which I don’t think is very good but If you go there again give an Aluna latte a try.
I was in Colombia in the summer and brought back Aluna roasted beans which were better than others I also brought. At a cocoa finca we went to (El Diamante in Quimbaya, Quindio where we walked round the estate, roasted cocoa, ground it, tasted it, saw cocoa processed into products, ate a meal with chocolate sauce on the meat plus hot chocolate with ice cream using their cocoa, all great fun) I spotted they had sachets of panella in boxes (it’s usually in a block which is harder to grate as time passes) and managed to persuade them to sell a box to me, one of the best moments from the holiday for me as I sometimes like a cafetière and drink it black with panella.
We also visited and stayed on a coffee finca (Finca El Ocado in Salento) which was a true bucket list item for me. I didn’t care about the finished product but to be amongst the plants including Tabi and geisha, taste the mucilage, plant the seed, pick cherries, see the whole processing, that was fulfilment of a dream. Quick digression, I later read a write up about working fincas where one chap had a tarantula just visible in its burrow pointed out to him. Yikes!
I relayed this to my Colombian wife who said yes of course, you walked amongst them too but they only come out at night. Same with snakes, they’re there but hide if they sense us around. And I had been having such a good time!
