A big thank you to our customers for helping us in a smooth trip to the amazing country of the Dominican Republic. I would highly recommend this country to any coffee enthusiast who wants to mix business and pleasure as we certainly did.
It was a frosty, foggy start to our departure day and getting delayed over 2 hours before taking off due to ice and low fog wasn’t the best way to start the trip, then 12 hours later we arrived at the Dreams resort and Spa and yes it certainly lived up to the name Dreams, what a place !! We would go back tomorrow if possible !! After a glass of champagne on arrival and settling in over the next few days we managed to book a trip by the means of a military open sided truck to head off into the hills and mountains to go visit a a coffee plantation, factory and farm, It was a much needed trip to what’s happening over in the eastern side of the coffee belt and loved seeing first hand how they do things in this area.
The plantation is owned and run by the Chappy family who have been growing coffee, cacao, sugar cane and other crops including cinnamon. The plantation and farm is in the mountainous region of Anamuya. The Chappy family have been growing here for generations, they lead a simple but hard working life between farm and primary jungle which has a thick dense undergrowth and low canopy making it one of the most arduous and gruelling conditions to work in, as I have first hand experience working in jungles. Besides the heat, humidity no medical support for miles is the sheer terrain as it’s near impossible to farm here using machines due to the sheer vegetation and steep sided slopes so therefore everything is done with a machete, parang and hands. The farm uses a large concrete pan which is located outside the front of the farm in a cleared area for the drying process which takes around 7 days. The coffee beans were a lot smaller than the ones we saw grown at the Kiwi coffee factory in Kenya just over 12 months ago, also the the farm was a lot smaller and didn’t seem as commercial as the Kenyan ones. Both factories are fairtrade, Rain forest alliance and organic.
Experience in this environment is absolute necessary, how these families live there generation after generation is hard to believe, just the simple things of managing their fresh drinking water and waste water during the dry seasons is amazing. The family are one of the most welcoming you will ever meet in your life, to invite complete strangers in to their home and let them look around makes you look differently on life and how our different cultures are worlds apart.
The plantation sits between 400m – 900m above sea level so basically the Brecon Beacons with jungle and plantains on them. El Chappy then took us through into a demonstration area where he began to talk about his farm and plantation in more detail, he talked about his coffee and then gave us a live demonstration on how he removes the outer cherry and roasts it in a pot over an open fire, probably the oldest and most simple form of coffee roasting.
After exploring around the plantation and farm further looking at the brightly decorated timber buildings it was time to head off further up into the hills to see more of the jungle and wildlife, soon after stopping off at a height of around 700m there was a brightly painted and impressive looking building which to our delight was were we stopped off for some local cuisine, a mixture of pasta, beans, rice and meats. Here we also managed to have a quick tour around and see a few reptiles including Croc’s and alligators and not forgetting the Flamingos, Danielle’s favourite (Danielle believed they were mythical creatures before seeing them in the flesh??) Then watched a local man make cigar’s right before our eyes, also we had a quick look at local hand made souvenir’s and locally made rum, which may I add was very good !!
After taking in the breath taking views it was time to head back down the mountains towards the coast, after a long bumpy ride we finally reached tarmac were to our pleasure our guide announced it was happy hour, so the rum started to flow !! we then arrived at one of the most impressive beaches we’ve ever seen, the beach is called Macao, near Punta Cana, its in the top 20 in the world. The beach is a surfers paradise with decent waves averaging 4-8ft daily. this was a tiring afternoon spent surfing in the waves and taking in the beautiful views, with white sands and clear blue water it really is worth a visit.
We are now back from our well needed vacation, we look forward to our next field trip which we hope to be Costa Rica as it’s just starting to come into its own in the travel guides.
