This morning we woke up bright and early to check out a coffee farm 20mins outside the city of Manizales, Hacienda Venecia. The drive out and really beautiful and we are located right in the Andes. We started our tour off with a shot of fresh Colombian espresso. It was delicious. Our guide described to us the different aromas and assortment of beans, as well as giving a demonstration of the assortments of qualities of beans. It was interesting to learn about Colombia´s growing regulations and export requirements in order to guarantee a high quality product to the rest of the world. We then drank another cup of espresso. 
Our guide took us on a trek around the farm to view the plants and the processes involved. Here`s a few things we learned;
- Coffee farms look much like a wine vineyard with coffee "berries" growing on bushes.
- Each bush stays in production for 30 years (but only produces 80% of the time due to pruning every 4 years, meaing no production in year 5)
- There are 2 major harvests each year.
- The berries have to be picked manually as there are no machines that can function on the steep slopes.
- To collect enough coffee produce 1 bag of processed coffee it takes 2 full days per picker, who are paid baised on the amount they gather.
- One bag (40kg) is sold for roughly $100.00 USD.
When we finished walking around the factory and back to the guest house we ate lunch and had an iced coffee and the weather was so nice so we decided to take advantage of the pool at the guesthouse, lounging around, drinking coffee all day long and there was lots of brids, so we watched them and we swam laps in the pool, drank more coffee and then we had to get in a jeep and go back to town and it was really really cool.... Did I mention we drank espresso all day? It was a fantastic day! It´s getting pretty late and we have a full day of travelling to Cali tomorrow but for some reason we´re not tired...
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