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Monthly Archives: April 2014
White Gold.
The cocaine mafia started in a small way in the early 1970s but, within a short time, the drug trade developed into a powerful industry with its own plantations, laboratories, transportation services and protection. The boom years began in the … Continue reading
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La Violencia.
WARNING! You may find the following narrative and photographs disturbing. After a period of relative peace, a struggle between Liberals and Conservatives broke out in 1948 with ‘La Violencia’, the most destructive of Colombia’s many civil wars, which left a … Continue reading
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Bienvenido a Colombia.
Where is Colombia? The Republic of Colombia is in northwestern South America. It is bordered by Venezuela and Brazil to the east, Ecuador and Peru to the south, Caribbean Sea to the north, Panama to the northwest, and the Pacific … Continue reading
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Feliz cumpleaños.
Celebrating my birthday – Colombian style. A welcome break from the staff quarters came in the form of an invitation to spend the eve of my birthday at ‘Casa Principal’ (the main house). A room here normally costs circa £100 … Continue reading
From ‘crop to cup’ – part 4 of 4.
Picture if you will a Pyramid – at the base of the pyramid can be found Robusta coffee then, as you climb up, you get Natural Arabica, then Washed Arabica, then speciality coffees – like ‘Kopi Luwak’. The price of … Continue reading
From ‘crop to cup’ – part 3 of 4.
Harvesting: Colombian coffee is all about ‘freshness’. Due to its location, the central region of Colombia is able to take multiple harvests. All the coffee in Colombia is harvested by hand. In other countries, where the coffee is grown in … Continue reading
From ‘crop to cup’ – part 2 of 4.
Is that a fact? We drink about 1.5 billion cups of coffee a day, with the USA drinking a 1/5 of this. In 2004 the coffee plantations of the world would have covered the country of Portugal. The 17 billion … Continue reading
From ‘crop to cup’ – part 1 of 4.
I have been receiving a lot of questions about coffee production here in Colombia. First a history lesson. Used traditionally by nomadic mountain warriors of the Galla tribe in Ethiopia, where the plant is indigenous, coffee was first eaten as … Continue reading
Hacienda Venecia.
Located within the UNESCO World Heritage-listed ´Coffee Triangle´, just 20 minutes from Manizales, Hacienda Venecia is a fourth generation working coffee farm made up of 200 hectares, of which 170 hectares produce coffee. Hacienda Venecia is a commercial coffee business, … Continue reading
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