Three cafés in the old town
Café Matuca on Carrera 5, at the edge of the centre, runs a two-hour session with four coffees, aroma and acidity tests, traditional and modern brewing and a cup you make yourself. An almojábana, the local cheese bread, comes with it, and children under twelve cannot join. A few blocks away on Calle 12b, DV Café Especial in La Candelaria starts in a sensory lab with two coffees, so you learn to tell a good cup from a flawed one, and then serves four single-origin coffees with four methods. Its beans come from Pitalito in Huila, the English session starts at 11 am and you take a 100 g bag home. Jaguar Coffee House on the same street offers a cupping of exotic coffees for a private group.
One English-speaking guest at Matuca found that the guide for their language had not come to work and that the replacement spoke little English, and at Jaguar one reviewer noted the session was shorter than scheduled. Most comments about both are positive, but if the language matters to you, confirm it with the operator before the day.
Coffee and chocolate in Chapinero
Further north, Bogota Pub Crawl starts at Libertario Coffee Roasters in Chapinero. You taste at two specialty coffee shops and then walk to Quinta Camacho, a quarter with English-style houses, for a chocolate tasting at an artisanal maker that works with Colombian fine-flavour cacao. The walk takes about two and a quarter hours for up to ten guests, and getting to the meeting point is up to you. Tell the operator about allergies in advance; the listing recommends the tour from age twelve.
A tasting that starts at your hotel
Octavio Pineda works the other way round: he picks you up where you stay and takes you to one or more specialty coffee shops nearby, usually on foot. The session lasts about an hour, is private and starts at a time you choose; two espressos are included and coffee to take home is not. It suits a free hour between other plans more than a dedicated outing.
Cupping and roasting workshops
LA FORJA on Calle 120a in the north starts with the raw material: coffee cherries, parchment and beans from washed, honey and natural processing. A comparative cupping follows, you make a small art piece to take home, and there is a bag of specialty coffee at the end. Plan two and a half hours. If you would rather roast than taste, the roasting workshop at Jaguar Coffee House takes a private group through the roasting levels in about an hour and a half.
Want to see coffee growing?
None of these sessions visits a plantation. For that, the day trips from Bogotá drive out to farms in Cundinamarca, and in Salento the farms are close to town.
