Audacity has a reward: Europe’s first coffee plantation is in Granada

Even so, he began to turn the matter. His family has been near Almuñécar for 250 years, the Finca Chaves16 hectares of land dedicated to crop. Especially what it deprives, which is avocado, mango and custard apple. And in addition, many other exotic fruits, up to a total of thirty varieties. “A diversified farm that produces fruit all year,” summarizes.

In 2016, after consulting with several friends in the area who had coffee ornamental plants, it was finally decided to introduce it. 160 plants in particular, of the Arabic variety – one of the most appreciated- that produce 80 kilos a year in a single harvest when spring arrives. It had water, which arrives from the nearby Jate River, and a tropical, humid and protected microclimate of the wind in which the morning dew helps.

Recognize that the first crops, which arrived from the age of four, They were “a disaster”especially because he tried to dry coffee in a very humid place. “Consequences of the lack of experience,” he tells last Toro, with a smile and after correcting those mistakes. “Now we dry it in an upper area, in full sun, and the changes are noticed.”

He speaks in the plural because he does not deal alone with those tasks. His father, his wife and two employees, who wants to give his share of prominence, as well as the agronomist Carlos Ferrónwhich has been his faithful advisor in this arduous journey.

With Ferrón, he spoke many times about the issue of height. So many, which gave them to elaborate a theory: coffee, in principle, needs to be cultivated at about 1,800 meters of altitude to grow healthy and strong. But Almuñécar’s farm is just 22 meters above sea level.

That keeps an amazing resemblance to what happens with chirimoya. In Peru It grows at 1,800 meters and in Almuñécar, almost next to the Mediterranean. So Manuel Mateos concluded that he could work exactly the same with coffee. “We have made an extrapolation and has signs of being something similar,” says this Sexitano, which combines his work in the field with the tourist guide.

Over time you have learned some essential things. For example, that the Granada coast cannot be shaded by coffee plantation with bananas, as in America, but With custarwhich does have on your farm. Also, that the only type of agriculture that guarantees a future is sustainable.

Maybe because of what is a guide, he wanted to focus his plantation in a tourist way, as if the coffee plantation were an attraction for those who come from outside. That is, of course. So Manuel Mateos Organize visits commented that conclude with the tasting of native coffee. «With eighty kilos a year I cannot think of selling it to establishments. A fairly frequented cafeteria can consume ten kilos of coffee a month, so it is evident that we do not give for that, ”he explains.

He would like to expand his domains, but he doesn’t know when he can do it. «The cafeteria that had in the horseshoe closed because of the covid, I am missing land and I also have, like all the farmers in the area, the problem of lack of conduits from the Rules damwhich is an inconvenience to water. But that is the idea, not limit ourselves to mango or avocado, which are very good, and try to bet on a singular project, ”he says.

Coffee, saying as a curious fact, has no name, is not of any brand. Probably to know that he was not going to be marketed, the person responsible for his cultivation has not yet sought it. But he says he is open to any suggestion that comes. The farm, for commercial purposes, does have it: HERRADURA COFFEE FARM.

HERRADURA COFFEE FARM is, as has been said at the beginning, the only estate where coffee is made in continental Europe. The nuance is necessary because the Portuguese Azores Islands and the Spanish Canary Islands They are also part of Europe and there is grown coffee. The oldest say of the place that for 200 years, although in an orderly and with the intention of trade with the product, the adventure began to develop at the end of the 20th century.

In the Agaete Valley, on the island of Gran Canaria, there is the La Laja estate, where the Arabian variety is also cultivated. Over there The weather conditions are very different To those of the Granada coast: it rains more and there is more moisture, especially. There are also more altitude and plants are grown a thousand meters, although there are some plots to 1,500.