Experience Coffee at Café Gran Batey
8/24- The farm has recently been purchased by the Instituto para la Investigación y Acción en Agroecología in PR, to save the hacienda and continue farming the land. Call to see if you can visit and possibly they can show you around the farm. Call or text Warys Zayas at 787-420-6355. Bring cash to buy coffee to take home!
There is nothing much better than being welcomed into the kitchen of a local Puerto Rican. You’ll always find freshly-brewed coffee, something simmering on the stove, and a warm atmosphere. Now, if that coffee was home-grown and processed, and then roasted right in front of you … then you know you have found something truly special.
We recently went on a tour at Café Gran Batey in Utuado, and we fell in love. We got to see coffee growing in their fields, and how they process the coffee at every step … all the way up to bagging the freshly-roasted, warm beans for sale.
Background
Café Gran Batey is a small, coffee farm in the beautiful Caguana area of Utuado. It was a the Morales-Aymat family run farm that has been purchased by the Instituto para la Investigación y Acción en Agroecología in PR, to save the hacienda and continue farming the land. Here, the family worked the land and machines to produce delicious coffee. The Instituto will try to offer tours at the farm, showing you the coffee-making process from bush to bag. Then invite you to enjoy a cup (or two!) of their quality coffee.
Our Visit
Note- When we went, the family was still running the farm and using all the original processing equipment. Now, the tour will be different, but no less interesting or delicious!
Bernardo and his wife, Lotty, greeted us when we arrived at their farm. Bernardo is an agronomist, and he works with the plants and processes the beans. Lotty helps with processing and is the coffee maker. Now, you will be greeted by someone from the Institute..
We were shown around the farm, seeing the arabica coffee plants (shaded by beautiful orange trees), both in flower and in fruit. He explained the differences between arabica and robusto coffee. He took us into the buildings housing the machines used to process the coffee beans. He started each of the machines for us to show how they worked to skin, sort, dry. de-chaf, and grade the coffee beans. It was all really interesting.
Next, we watched them roasting the coffee beans that would (in just moments) be used to brew coffee for us to taste. It was really neat, and the roasting coffee beans smelled great.
Then they bought us a cup of the delicious coffee. We even got to taste the fresh oranges from their trees.
After we finished with the tasting, we bought a few bags of the roasted coffee for home!.
This coffee is good … really good. And don’t just take my word for it — their sample from their 2012 crop achieved the highest score of all the coffees judged in the Specialty Coffee Association of America convention that year.
Café Gran Batey is a small place, but it is BIG on taste and the experience is great too!
On a side note — The whole processing operation is located on flat ground, just a few feet from the parking area, so it is accessible for most everyone. There are just a couple steps up into the house for the coffee roasting area tasting area.
Details
The coffee tasting and farm visit are free but they don’t really have tours at the moment. While you’re there, you should buy a bag (or 2 or 3!) of their fresh-roasted coffee. They sell it (beans or ground) by the pound or ½-pound.
They are currently not really running tours. They are generally Open about Wed- Fri- 8am-12n, 1pm-3pm and Saturday 9am until 12n and 1-3pm. for coffee purchases. But call for an appointment to visit..
Call or Text for reservations Warys Zayas at 787-420-6355
You can get more info on the the IALA-PR Facebook page.
You can purchase their coffee in person at their farm, or at Café Cola’o in Old San Juan.
Café Gran Batey farm is located on Road 111 KM 11 in Utuado, about 1½ hours from San Juan. They are located just down the road from the Caguana Ceremonial Park.
Click on a placename below to view the location on Google Maps ...
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