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Recuca is a touristic coffee plantation located between the towns of Calarcá and Barcelona, just outside of Armenia. It’s one of the best places to learn about not only the production of coffee from seed to cup but also Colombian coffee culture.
Introduction to Recuca
Do you ever wonder what really goes into making your morning cup of coffee? It’s not something most people think twice about. For many people in Colombia, one of the top coffee producers in the world, coffee isn’t just a refreshing hot drink. It’s their livelihood, culture, and much more.
At Recuca, you’ll get a firsthand look at what it takes to make a simple cup of coffee as well as a chance to immerse yourself in the culture of the Coffee Region. This coffee plantation offers entertaining guided tours in both Spanish and English. It’s open every day of the year and has tours running every 30 minutes from 9am to 3pm. It’s located in the UNESCO World Heritage listed Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia, and there’s also a hotel on the property.
Getting to Recuca
If you don’t have your own transportation, you can hop on a bus from Armenia’s bus terminal headed towards the town of Barcelona. Ask the driver to let you off at the road to Recuca. From there, it’s a 2.2-kilometer walk to the entrance. If you don’t feel like walking, the gatekeeper can call a jeep to take you to the plantation for a small fee.
Tour Options at Recuca
There are three tour options. You can buy your tickets in person or online. Tours start when a group of 40 people is formed, or after an hour regardless of the number of people. To have a more comfortable visit, it’s recommended to take insect repellent, sunscreen, comfortable shoes, and a hat. All prices below are current as of April 2025:
- The most popular is the Coffee Tour – Bogadera (Tour del Café – Bogadera), which is a 3-hour tour of the coffee process and coffee culture that costs COP$50,000 per person and free for kids under 90 centimeters.
- The Coffee Cupping (Catación de Café) is an hour-long coffee tasting demonstration for COP$50,000. It’s not suitable for kids or people who have difficulty standing for long periods.
- The Cacao Tour (Tour del Cacao) covers the history and cultivation of cacao and the post-harvest processing steps. It costs COP$55,000 per person and free for kids under 90 centimeters.
If you have a full day, you can save 10% and do all three for COP$140,000 per person. Keep in mind the guides may not do the sequence of the tours as I’ve written about them below. They rearrange on the fly depending on other tours. Check the official website for more info.
Coffee Tour at Recuca
We’ve done the Coffee Tour (Bogadera) a couple times and have really enjoyed it. In our experience, it’s much better if you’re traveling with a large group rather than individually. You’ll learn why in a bit.
Educational Walk
The first part of the tour is a 30-minute walk to learn about the coffee cultivation process. There are different stations set up for you to learn about the discovery and history of coffee, a world map indicating the consumers and producers, a map of Colombia showing coffee producing regions, the different types of coffee, and the ideal ecological conditions for growing coffee. It’s quite interesting to me that Colombia is such a huge producer of coffee but not a very big consumer. Although things have changed since I moved there, that explains why lots of the coffee I found was terrible!
The guide shows seedlings, how they’re originally planted in sand, and later transferred to soil as they grow. You’ll also learn about the diseases that affect coffee trees, such as roya (a fungus) and broca (a worm that burrows into coffee cherries).
Cultural Presentation
Next, you’ll visit a hall to learn a little about the culture of the Coffee Region. You get to dress up in traditional costumes of coffee collectors and do some dancing, and possibly some traditional machete fighting. Some of it can be a little embarrassing but it’s all in good fun. This is why I recommend going with a big group of friends and family.
After the dancing, a wonderful presentation takes place in a small theatre showing a scale model of a traditional coffee town and a parade of jeeps. The guide explains the meaning of each jeep and the roles of the people in the parade. Then there’s a skit with guest participation that kind of makes fun of jeep drivers. It’s very entertaining.
The Coffee Process
Now it’s time to put yourself in the shoes of a coffee farmer. You’re given a short demonstration of some of the modern equipment and gear used by coffee collectors, then everyone ties a bucket around their waist and goes into the field to pick coffee. We only spent about 10 minutes doing the picking before we were called back and paid play money for our hard work. A refreshing aguapanela drink is served to quench your thirst.
Then it’s off to the processing area where the guide demonstrates how the seeds are separated from the coffee cherries. First is an example with a traditional hand-cranked machine followed by a modern machine. Then you’ll see firsthand how the coffee is dried and finally hand-selected.
Coffee Tasting
The final part of the tour gives you a chance to taste the coffee. You’re shown how to make a perfect cup, complete with suggestions on water temperature, the amount of coffee to use, techniques for pouring the water, and the proper way to stir coffee. If you think wine is high maintenance, just wait until you learn the proper way to make coffee!
Coffee Cupping at Recuca
The Coffee Cupping is a very interesting in-depth coffee tasting for true coffee connoisseurs. It begins with a smell test of several concentrated liquids from different plants and fruits, such as rose, almond, cacao, and lemon. You’re then given a chance to test your taste buds by sampling different spoonfuls of water. Each spoonful is either bitter, sweet, sour, salty, or neutral.
Next, you’ll test the aroma of 6 different coffee grounds. The goal is to determine which ones are the highest quality and lowest quality. The guide then adds water and you repeat the process. For the third and final part of the test, you’ll taste each coffee. Don’t be surprised if your opinions change after each step! Luckily for our sense of smell and taste, we were able to correctly choose the best and worst quality coffees.
The last part of the Coffee Cupping is an even more in-depth instruction on how to make a perfect cup of coffee than you get in the Coffee Tour. You’re shown how to properly grind roasted coffee beans depending on the type of coffee you wish to make, the correct temperature of water, the exact amount of coffee to use per cup, how to prepare the filter, and how to pour. It’s very interesting and you’ll come away with a lot more knowledge. One of the most important facts is that a perfect cup of high-quality coffee needs absolutely no sugar and should taste amazing on its own. Every time you feel like you have to add sugar or milk to your coffee, it’s most likely either badly prepared or a low-quality coffee.
Cacao Tour at Recuca
The Cacao Tour is the least requested out of all the tours at Recuca. Our guide told us that for every Cacao Tours, there are 10 Coffee Tours. It’s still an interesting few hours to spend learning about where our chocolate comes from.
Sacred Forest
The tour begins in the Sacred Forest (Bosque Sagrado), where the guide talks about how cacao was considered sacred by the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The forest contains rows of cacao trees interspersed with plantains.
The guide goes over the countries that are the biggest cacao producers in the world, which are overwhelmingly in Africa, as well as the biggest consumers.
He then covers the three varieties of cacao found in Colombia and cuts two of them open for visitors to try. The criollo, which is from Ecuador, is the sweetest type of cacao but it’s susceptible to disease. The forastero is low quality but very disease-resistant. Finally, there’s the trinitario, which is a hybrid of the two developed in Trinidad and Tobago. It’s not as sweet as the criollo but is disease-resistant.
Finally, the guide will talk about fertilization and controlling weeds around the cacao trees before getting into the diseases that affect cacao. Insects and fungi can have devastating effects on cacao crops.
Cacao Processing
The next part of the tour covers cacao processing, starting with fermentation, where the cacao beans are kept in a crate for 48 hours. They’re turned and moved to another crate for 48 hours, and then a third and final crate for 24 hours. After that, the beans are set out to dry for 7 to 10 days.
From there, you’ll walk to another building where you’ll learn how cacao is roasted. The guide will ask a volunteer to help stir the cacao as it roasts in a pot, then everyone comes to the table and helps remove the shells.
Next, the guide will choose a few volunteers to help grind the cacao using a manual grinder. It’s ground a few times to turn it into a paste, then you’ll get the chance to shape it. After that, visitors have a few minutes to dress up in traditional clothing and take photos at a scene in the back of the building.
Cacao Tasting
It’s finally time to taste the cacao. You’ll follow the guide to a room where he’ll explain the benefits of cacao and traditional uses in Colombia. There will be a couple funny stories of how housewives in the Coffee Region used it as an aphrodisiac to attract their husbands in order to make more babies. You’ll then have a chance to try a delicious migote, also called migao, which is hot chocolate poured over a bowl of bread or crackers with white cheese.
Chocotherapy
The final part of the tour introduces guests to chocotherapy. The guide heats up some chocolate mixed with coffee, then asks everyone to put plastic gloves on their hands. He then pours the chocolate into the gloves, and you put on a pair of oven mitts to keep the chocolate warm. After dimming the lights and listening to relaxing music for a few minutes, everyone takes off the gloves and washes their hands. You’ll definitely come out of it with smoother skin!
Traditional Lunch at Recuca
I highly recommend trying the traditional lunch. You’re served what they call “bitute” but it’s pretty much a bandeja paisa. In fact, Marisol grew up on a coffee farm and never once heard the word “bitute”. Anyway, it’s a hearty meal of beans, rice, egg, rice, plantain, ground beef, and arepa. You also get a choice of chorizo or chicharrón. It’s washed down with mazamorra and aguapanela. Every time we’ve had it, it was delicious! The lunch costs COP$28,000 (as of April 2025) and is a must if you’re sticking around for a full day. Vegetarian options are also available.
Casa Lila Café
Near the main building you’ll find Casa Lila Café. They serve decent coffee, and there’s an upper floor where you can enjoy it with an incredible view.
Gift Shop at Recuca
The gift shop is located inside the main building. You can find all kinds of souvenirs, sweets, and other items to take home. If you’re looking for coffee or chocolate, you’ll have to go across the street to another store.
Our Thoughts on Recuca
Recuca is a long but enjoyable day. It isn’t as technical as some tours, but it makes up for it in other ways. We both feel that the explanation on the processing of coffee after it’s picked is a bit weak, but they do a wonderful job of demonstrating the culture of the region. Our 6-hour day never felt like it dragged at all, especially since the guides are entertaining and funny. If you have a full day to learn about coffee, this is a great place to do it.
You can opt for a more technical tour in Salento at Finca El Ocaso, but this one is much more enjoyable. In our experience, however, the best overall tour is at Café San Alberto in Buenavista followed by Café Jesús Martín out of Salento.
