Lima and an impromptu Coffee Date at Café Verde!

Lima- 25th-27th August 2011.

We’ve spent the last couple of days in Lima, in a lovely, but not mind boggling suburb called Miraflores. We wanted to see a little of Lima, despite it’s dull reputation, so we thought we would stay in the nice area and dip our feet into the central region as and when we felt like it.

We arrived at 5.30am Thursday morning, shattered after the Pisco climb the day before and from a bumpy night bus from Huaraz . We managed to find a taxi that wasn’t going to rip us off and found/checked into ‘Enjoy Hostels’ in an 8 bed dorm for $10 a night each. “Oh yes” we cried unenthusiastically- “back to the big dorm rooms again”. We needed to try and recoup money from the expensive Pisco climb…To our surprise we had the room to ourselves and even got a few much needed hours sleep before we headed out to explore!

Miraflores offers the typical Gringo experience of shopping and dinning, so we went to the Inca Market and the large department stores to Sarah’s delight! We even got ourselves a top each at a whopping £12 each- and that’s expensive!! But remember our rule- 1 in 1 out! Something out of our daily worn 4 month old clothes must go in our bags- “wohoo”..

On Friday we headed into central Lima to book bus tickets and took a tour round the monestry of San Fransisco which was fascinating with all the catacombs of dead monks beneath the church. We could see however why people don’t like central dodgy Lima. After having ‘gringo’ shouted at us on several occasions and pick-pockets eying us up, we decided to head back to the safe Miraflores region.

Café Verde

We headed down to the Pacific Ocean, where all the gorgeous hotels and fancy plaza’s are. We gazed up in ore, this was far far from our 8 bed dorm hostel, at least we can cook in ours!. Anyway, we stumbled on a coffee stall, and to our delight, it was giving away free great home roasted Peruvian coffee. We got talking to the owner KC (an American) and his Peruvian wife who run an export coffee bean business and coffee shop in Miraflores. They kindly invited us to roast coffee beans with them the next day and learn more about coffee. As you all know I am a bit of a coffee fiend so how could I refuse!

We headed out early the next morning and set off along the sea front in Miraflores to find Café Verde on Santa Cruz (1305). We found it not through sight, but via smell- we arrived to the most amazing coffee aroma and a bustling little coffee shop.

KC and his wife had set up the roasters and took us through the whole process, it was fascinating. What we didn’t quite realise was the importance of your own personal taste and the impact it has on how hot and how long the beans should be roasted for. We love dark bitter chocolate so this was our objective.

We were fortunate enough to be there to open bean samples from different farmers and found out about coffee growing processes; imports/exports; insect damage; bad beans and instant coffee (dare we mention it). We also learned about shelling the beans and most importantly how to roast. It was one of the best days I’ve had in South America, and has changed my coffee ritual for life. I think the UK is quite fortunate to receive such good quality beans, as good coffee in Peru is a rare commodity (believe it or not) as it’s all exported to us and the States.

At the end of our coffee roasting experience, the proof was in the tasting! We ground our beans and tasted the bitter dark chocolate we wanted. It was the best cup of coffee I have ever had!! KC also kindly gave us a fresh bag of beans so we could look forward to having them over the next week. Thank you KC and Café Verde for a very memorable experience!  

My new coffee policy:

1-     To buy whole beans and grind them in a hand grinder. You loose the majority of the aromas 15minutes after grinding, even with freshly ground supermarket coffee. (Now I obviously can’t transport a hand grinder around with me, so this won’t happen until I have a kitchen. Fresh pre ground coffee will have to do!!)

2-     No need for fancy machines!

3-     To use my new portable coffee filter- an amazing tool even for use on the road. Gone are the days of Nescafe!

4-     No need for sugar as good coffee should have it’ own sweetness.

http://www.cafeverdeperu.com/sp/

Off to Cuzco now!