Strawberry Hill, Gap Cafe and the Old Tavern coffee estate
on George Hamilton (Jamaica), 12/Jun/2011 22:35, 34 days ago
This was a short day trip with Kim and John up into the Blue Mountains for a few hours. The loosely defined objective was to get to Cinchona Gardens. This did not happen, but we dropped by the Strawberry Hill, the Gap Cafe, and The Old Tavern Coffee estate. When I write all this it sounds like we were terribly busy, but we just sauntered up casually and took our time.There's a hummingbird tucked away in this tree if you look closely.The photos follow in chronological order so you can get an idea of what the trip looked like. Here's John taking a photo at Strawberry Hill.No guarantees if there's a humming bird in this picture:A lobster claw plant:The roof of one of the cottages at Strawberry Hill:Kim and John relaxing with their cameras.The swimming pool at Strawberry Hill with the glass side and overlooking Kingston way down below in the distance:Photos of various famous visitors to Strawberry Hill. Mick Jagger and Bob Marley are in the right hand photograph, also Chris Blackwell the founder of Island Records; Sting is probably in the middle one.(I should have checked the labels on the photos or asked for information from one of the staff).Another humming bird or two:One of the hundreds of pretty blue flowers growing along the edge of the road that weren't there the last time I drove along it.We passed this small waterfall, also new and probably the result of five days of steady rain between last Friday morning and the following Tuesday evening:We have arrived at the Gap Cafe with great pumpkin soup. The cafe's feeders made it easier to spot hummingbirds and photo them before they zipped off. This is a rare photo of two birds at a feeder at one time, usually one would drive another off.A doctor bird with its long tail:Scenery along the way to the Old Tavern Coffee estate:The old land rover parked next to the coffee estate - a sure fire way of identifying that you have arrived at the Old Tavern coffee estate. The name Old Tavern came from a very old map that identified a location called Old Tavern just up the road from here.Maybe this vehicle had once parked outside the original Old Tavern location , but maybe in those days it was just horses and mules? Many places in Jamaica go back hundreds of years.Three roses growing in front of a coffee plant in the garden.Machines used to grind the coffee. The lady to the left of the picture picks out the reject coffee beans that are broken or have chips out of them.We enjoyed ourselves at the Old Tavern coffee estate, Mrs Twyman welcomes visitors with a relaxing coffee and cookies break in her sun porch overlooking the valley below with its rows of coffee bushes far below the house on the steep hills. You may buy bags of Blue Mountain coffee directly from her too. An interesting part of the visit is into the coffee production area where Mrs Twyman offers you different types of coffee beans to breath in the aroma and then crunch and and compare flavors.It was that sort of relaxing day but a little on the hot side. At the end of it all we had ice cream cones at Devon House to finish the trip off in an unhurried manner.