Bogota Coffee Tours — Questions Answered

Yes, and a few days ahead is usually enough. Two of the farm days need a minimum of two travellers to run, and the city workshops go on fixed mornings rather than daily, so the popular slots close first. Booking early also gives you the free cancellation window to change your mind in.

Three to five days covers most of the year. Some listings confirm instantly and others take up to 48 hours to come back to you, which is worth knowing if you are booking for tomorrow. If you are travelling between June and August or over Christmas, give it a week.

Yes, and solo travellers are welcome on every tour listed here. Two farm days need two confirmed travellers to operate, and both refund in full if that minimum is not reached rather than leaving you out of pocket. The city workshops run whatever your party size.

You get a full refund, or the option to move to another date. Two listings state this explicitly and both put it in writing on the booking page. It is the reason a solo booking on a farm day is worth making early rather than late.

Every tour here runs in English. Most also run in Spanish, several add French, Italian or Portuguese, and one city workshop is English-only by default with Spanish available on request. The language is listed on each tour.

Yes. Six of the departures are private, meaning only your group travels, and they range from a three-hour walk around Chapinero to a nine-hour day with a car and a bilingual guide to yourselves. Private departures are the ones that collect you from your own address.

Almost all of these tours refund in full if you cancel at least 24 hours before the start time. One does not, and it says so on its own card and on its listing. Two farm days also allow the operator to cancel for bad weather, again with a full refund.

One: the two-hour coffee and chocolate walk through Chapinero. Its listing marks the sale as final, so a cancellation is not refunded. Every other departure refunds in full at 24 hours.

On most tours, yes, up to 24 hours before departure. One city walk treats a late change as a no-show, and one private workshop asks for at least a day's notice. Check the individual listing before you rearrange anything.

From $49 per person for a two-hour tasting walk in the city to $659 for a nine-hour private day with a car and guide to yourself. Most full farm days land between $94 and $180. Every price quoted here is per person, in US dollars, as the operator listed it.

A city workshop is $49 to $60. A shared farm day runs $81 to $130. Private farm days start around $94 and rise with the vehicle and the hours you get on the estate.

On most of them, yes — the farm entry fee is inside the price. One day trip excludes it and says so, which is why it is cheaper than its neighbours on the list. Each card states what the fare covers.

Nine of them include a cooked lunch, usually eaten on the farm. Five exclude food entirely, one includes it only on the private option, and one offers lunch at the farm as a paid extra. It is the single biggest hidden cost on a coffee day.

Because you are buying different things. The $49 walk is two hours on foot in one district with three tastings; the $659 day is a private car, a bilingual guide and seven hours on one of the country's most-awarded estates. Between them sit the shared farm days, which is where most people book.

Tips are not included on any of these tours and are not expected. Several listings say plainly that gratuities are optional but appreciated, for the guide and for the farm hosts separately. If you want to, small notes in Colombian pesos are easiest.

Usually only what you choose to buy. Bags of coffee, souvenir photographs and the occasional binocular hire are the items the listings name as extras. One farm day prices lunch separately and one excludes the entry ticket.

The tours are priced and paid for in US dollars when you book online. Anything you buy at the farm — beans, lunch on the tours that do not include it, a coffee liqueur — is in pesos. Carry some cash, because card acceptance out in the hills is patchy.

Between eight and fourteen hours, door to door. The drive alone is 1.5 to 3 hours each way depending on the farm and on the traffic getting out of the city. Plan it as a whole day rather than a morning.

Farm days leave between 6:30 and 9:00 in the morning, and one of them warns that most departures are before 7:00. City workshops start at 10:00. The exact time is confirmed with you after booking, usually the day before.

The nearest farms are about 90 minutes out; the furthest are three hours. They sit around Fusagasuga, Silvania, Cachipay, Zipacon and Nilo, roughly a thousand metres lower than the city. Only the tasting walks stay inside the city itself.

Layers, and shoes you do not mind getting muddy. You leave a city at 2,640 metres where mornings are grey and cold, and arrive somewhere much warmer and often wet underfoot. Bring a light rain jacket whatever the forecast says.

No departure here is described by its operator as wheelchair accessible. Three state that a stroller can be managed, and several note uneven ground and rural paths. If mobility is a concern, the city tastings involve under a mile of flat walking and are the gentlest option.

Yes on most tours, and three listings specifically mention stroller access. Two ask that infants sit on laps in the vehicle, and one farm charges full price from age two. The two-hour city workshops suit shorter attention spans better than a nine-hour farm day.

Almost never. Four listings state directly that they operate in all weather, and one farm keeps waterproof ponchos for visitors. Only the two departures to a single estate west of the city allow the operator to cancel for weather, and those refund in full.

Yes on every working farm these tours visit — they are estates with buildings, kitchens and staff, not open fields. The stops on the drive are the usual roadside places. Ask your guide before the walking section rather than during it.

On a farm day, an hour or two on sloping and sometimes uneven ground. Several listings ask for a moderate level of fitness and one notes rural paths that can be slippery. The city workshops cover under a mile, flat, with a coffee at each stop.

Nine of them do, from any address in the city and in one case from El Dorado airport. The rest ask you to meet at a named place — a hostel in La Candelaria, a cafe in Chapinero, or a hotel on Avenida El Dorado. The card for each tour says which.

These are established operators running the same route daily, with their own drivers and vehicles. Reviewers write about the traffic far more than about anything else. Take the usual care with valuables and you will be fine.

No. The Coffee Triangle is Quindio, Risaralda and Caldas, several hundred kilometres west and an hour away by plane. Bogota sits in Cundinamarca, which grows its own coffee in the hills below the city — the same crop, a different department, and a day trip rather than a domestic flight.

No, and this is the fact that shapes every tour here. Arabica needs roughly 1,200 to 2,000 metres and Bogota sits at about 2,640, which is too high and too cold. Every farm visit from the city is a descent of about a thousand metres.

Often, and on one farm year round — that listing includes cherry picking in every month. Elsewhere it depends on what is ripe when you arrive; outside the harvest you are more likely to plant a seedling or sort dried beans. Every farm shows you the full process either way.

The mitaca is the smaller, mid-year harvest that follows the main crop, and it is why Colombian farms have something happening most of the year. Ask your guide which crop you have arrived in, because the answer changes what you do on the slope.

It is the standard way coffee is tasted and scored: ground coffee, hot water, a spoon, and a sheet to write on. Two of the city workshops hand you the sheet and teach you to use it. It is the difference between drinking coffee and reading it.

Yes, on every farm day, and one tour sends you home with a 125 g bag included in the price. Reviewers routinely say they wished they had packed a spare bag. City workshops end in roasteries that sell by the kilo.

No, and several reviewers who do not drink it say so themselves. A farm day is about a crop, a landscape and the people who grow it, and lunch is usually part of the deal. The tasting at the end is optional in practice.

Time and place. A farm day is eight to fourteen hours, leaves the city, and shows you the plant, the wet mill and the drying beds; a city tasting is two or three hours on foot in one district and shows you the roast, the brew and the cup. Neither replaces the other.