Over the past 4-5 months, I have been traveling around Italy, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, and France. I helped build a cabin in the Alps, kitesurfed along the island of Sardinia and the Moroccan coast, attended a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat in Spain, tried to sail to Greece, and explored Lisbon, Porto, and Toulouse with a beautiful friend of mine. I spent my days making new friends, learning Italian, camping on the beach, improving my culinary skills, and taking 21-hour buses across borders (instead of flying) because my visa expired and I was illegal. Woohoo!
Towards the end of August, I returned to South America. Currently, I am in Brazil studying everything there is to know about specialty coffee. For the next week, I will be taking a course on roasting coffee with Coffee Lab in São Paulo. After, I have tentative plans to head to the state of Minas Gerais to visit several coffee farms and learn firsthand about various post-harvest processes involving “green” coffee.
While each year brings variations, Brazil’s general harvest season for coffee is from May – September. This means I most likely won’t get to pick the coffee cherries from the tree. Because of this, Colombia is on my radar for the near future as its season starts in October and goes through December.
For now, though, I am enjoying these moments in Brazil. The samba, the language, the charisma of the people. I missed it all, and it feels right to be back.
Tchau for now!
With love,
Alexander
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