Bogota Coffee Tastings and Cupping Rooms
You do not have to leave the city to taste properly. Four departures work Bogota itself, almost all of them in one district, and between them they cover the three things a farm day cannot: the roast, the brew, and learning to say what you are tasting.
The three-shop walk through Chapinero
Chapinero is where Bogota keeps its specialty coffee, and every city departure works it. The walk is short — one listing says under a mile, flat, with a coffee at each stop — and the rooms are close enough that the walking is a pleasure rather than a transfer. One reviewer notes that this is not La Candelaria, and that from the old town it is a twenty to twenty-five minute taxi.
The rooms these tours use are named on their listings: Casa Cafe Cultor on Calle 70a, Libertario Coffee Roasters a few blocks west on the same street, Cafe 18 Rosales on Carrera 5, La Parla Workcafe up on Carrera 3, and Chuculat on Carrera 10a for the chocolate end of it. Quinta Camacho, the neighbourhood the route crosses, is full of English-style houses and one listing points that out as you walk through.
Your options, side by side
The specialty workshop
What happens: three coffee shops, a tasting at each, the growing
regions of Colombia explained, and cupping practised properly.
How long: two hours, starting at 10:00 on Tuesday, Thursday and
Saturday.
Best for: anyone who wants to understand a menu afterwards. It is
English-language by default and capped at ten.
The coffee and chocolate walk
What happens: an introduction and first tasting at a roastery, a walk
through Quinta Camacho, a second coffee stop, then Colombian chocolate from several
regions.
How long: two hours fifteen, from 10:00.
Best for: people travelling with someone who does not drink coffee.
Note that this is the one listing here that is non-refundable.
The private cupping workshop
What happens: three coffee houses, an hour in each, brewing variables,
grinding, and a cupping sheet you fill in yourself.
How long: three hours, private.
Best for: the reader who already brews at home and wants vocabulary
rather than an introduction.
The roastery visit
What happens: a private two hours in La Candelaria with a guide and a
coffee specialist at the roaster, and a guided tasting.
How long: two hours.
Best for: anyone staying in the old town who does not want to cross the
city. It is the only city departure not based in Chapinero.
Cupping, and what the sheet in front of you is for
A cupping is how the trade tastes coffee: ground beans, hot water, a spoon, and a printed sheet with a flavour wheel on it. You break the crust, you smell it, you slurp from the spoon, and you write down what you got. Two of these workshops hand you the sheet and a pen and expect you to use both.
It is the difference between drinking coffee and reading it, and it is the one thing a farm day tends not to teach. On a finca the emphasis is the plant; in a tasting room the emphasis is the cup.
Doing a tasting after a farm day
They work well in that order and badly in the other. A farm day shows you the crop, the wet mill and the drying beds; a city tasting then puts a name to what those choices did to the flavour. Several travellers do the farm on one day and a two-hour workshop on another, and it costs about $50 to close the loop.
If you are doing only one, pick by time rather than by subject. Nine hours is a day; two hours is a morning. A coffee tours in Bogota is worth building a day around, but not worth squeezing.
Useful tip. Book a late-morning slot rather than an early one. You will drink four to six coffees in two hours, and one reviewer's advice after doing it is simply to leave room. What a coffee day does to your afternoon.
Booking a workshop
These are the easiest things on the site to book late. There is no minimum party size on any of them, no vehicle to fill and no dawn start. Prices run from $49 to $60 per person, and all but one refund in full at 24 hours.
Every departure is on Bogota Coffee Tours, and the questions people ask before booking cover the rest.
