Antigua, Coffee Tour

From Antigua we took a tour of a coffee plantation. This is our guide, Joshua, and our tour truck.

First we saw the baby coffee plants. They graft Arabica plants onto Robusto roots. Arabica are smaller, have less caffeine and more flavour.

Coffee plants are related to Jasmine and Gardenia. The flowers have a beautiful scent, much like Jasmine.

We had to pick coffee beans ourselves. The outside fruit is called the cherry and tastes quite sweet.

Unfortunately, this is a bit blurry, but the white beans are the coffee.

These are the kids working on the plantation, along with their parents.

They were so poor and dirty! I gave them pencils I had brought along from Canada (all that we could carry in backpacks...we have other things aboard that they could have used more). They were thrilled!

Hard work for a kid!

I don't think he was sticking his tongue out at Ralph??

Hard work for anyone. Here they are sorting the last of the picking. Earlier in the season, they only pick the ripe ones. Now they pick them all and sort later. Hot, dirty, tiring work. We tried to ask the guide about what they paid, but he kind of hedged saying that they were paid well and more than minimum wage...which is less than $200 a month.

These are the green and red cherries. They are the rejected ones from the process. They are used in instant coffee, liquers, candies, etc.

They spread the beans and dry them in the sun. They must be raked constantly and they listen to the beans crackling to know when to do it.

Dan listens intently to our guide. Is he planning on setting up his own plantation or just afraid Joshua is going to ask him and question? In fact, Joshua was a great guide, with good English, and DID love to ask questions to see if we'd been listening.

What's Dan looking for? He WAS quite concerned that we were all walking on the beans!

Sniff, sniff, just checking to see if they smell like coffee. At this stage they smell more like cocoa.

The tour is over and we've had our free coffee...we're happy! Bought some too as it tasted very good. It costs more than $6 a pound, so not all that cheap. I'll keep you posted on what it is like once we open it!

This was the sign outside the coffee tasting and restaurant.