GROWING COFFEE IN SPAIN? Exploring Europe’s Only Coffee Farm – Finca Los Castaños
GROWING COFFEE IN SPAIN?
Exploring Europe’s Only Coffee Farm – Finca Los Castaños
If you are a Coffee Nerd like me, you will probably know that most of the world’s coffee is grown within a specific ring around the earth sometimes called “The Coffee Belt” (pictured right). This spans from the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere up to the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere.
That being said, there is one coffee growing region just north of this belt that has really caught my attention lately, and that’s where our story begins!
EUROPEAN-GROWN COFFEE!
You may know that Europe has been experimenting with growing coffee for quite some time now from small plots of land in the Azores Islands of Portugal to very controlled conditions in the UK’s KEW Gardens.
Now let's zoom in to a few islands just off the coast of Morocco called The Canary Islands which also happen to be a part of Spain.
I took a quick trip from my home in Barcelona to the Island of Gran Canaria to check out one of the oldest and biggest coffee plantations in Europe called Finca Los Castaños.
Anais and I started our journey in the capital city of Las Palmas, taking a few days to enjoy the beautiful beaches and check out the local coffee scene before moving on.
CAFETEROS COFFEE ROASTERS
We will start this trip at the end of the coffee process, with a cup of coffee, in the island’s capital city of Las Palmas
It seems obvious, but if we were not drinking coffee, there would be no growing, no harvesting, processing, shipping, roasting, nor brewing.
Here at Cafeteros, the specialty café of Finca Los Castaños, we were able to really dig into the entire process from seed to cup, but after a few coffees, I knew that it was time to go straight to the source, the Agaete Valley.
AGAETE VALLEY
A quick bus ride later , we arrived in the coast of Agaete where we had the pleasure of enjoying breathtaking nature, warm coastal breeze, and a beautiful hike along the mountain cliffs to brew a coffee over the Atlantic ocean.
Now that I had a sense of the local beauty here in Agaete, it was time to visit the seeds of coffee processing here in Spain, the finca itself, which is only a 15 minute drive from the coast. Anais and I were fortunate enough to get a ride into the valley from our seaside stay by a local coffee friend of ours, Dara, and a fellow coffee writer, Resi (Way To Coffee Blog).
Be sure to check out their profiles for more coffee goodness!
FINCA LOS CASTAÑOS
We soon arrived at the finca (coffee estate), and I finally had the chance to meet Antonio Marquez Biotegui, the coffee farmer here at Los Castaños.
He led the small group of us through the entire coffee chain experience within the span of a few metres – it was incredible!
Antonio showed us a range of different coffee varietals from Typica to Geisha, as well as the drying processes they have going on: natural, honey, washed, and even some carbonic maceration.
We even got to chew on a few coffee cherries which were just reaching the point of ripeness while surrounded by other fruits like oranges, avocados, and even lush pomelos.
If you would like to see the farm and full interview with Antonio about the 150-year history of coffee in the region, parallels between wine and coffee, and his projections for where we are headed in the near future, check out the video here:
JOIN ME ON YOUTUBE!
To conclude this remarkable trip, I'm relaxing here in Agaete, sipping a glass of local volcanic wine, watching the incredible Atlantic sunset, and reminiscing about my entire experience here on my first European coffee farm.
What’s the future of Spanish-grown coffee?
Only time will tell.
If you want to see more of my coffee adventures, a quick subscribe on Youtube would be a huge WIN-WIN, so I hope to see you over there, coffee nerds!
Cheers :)