Centro de Ciência do Café + Adega Mayor

On Saturday we left Évora for our next two stops.  We have one night in Elvas and one night in Marvão.  Before spending the evening in Elvas, we stopped at the Centro de Ciência do Café (Coffee Science Center) and the nearby winery Adega Mayor.  

While looking at wineries in the area, we found Adega Mayor also has a Coffee Science Center which Alex thought would make for an interesting visit.  Upon arrival, we met with a barista, Pedro, who was so passionate about coffee and really made the visit fun and interesting.  He told us this is the only coffee science center in Europe!  Who knew!?!  Pedro made us several coffee drinks all while giving information about the properties of coffee and what to look for when making a drink.  I am not a coffee drinker, but still really enjoyed the tour and surprised no one more than myself when I actually liked some of the coffee drinks he made!   Needless to say, we were both a little coffee "buzzed" after so much caffeine!

Once we were done at the Coffee Science Center, we headed up the road to the winery, Adega Mayor.  We took a winery tour and were the only English speakers in the group.  Everyone else spoke Portuguese.  Luckily, the tour guide was able to give the tour in both English and Portuguese which was helpful!  At the end of the tour, we were given a tasting of two wines (one white and one red).  The winery has a beautiful roof-top with reflecting pool (the pool helps keep the wine cellar below cool by reflecting the sun off the roof!!) and each got a glass of wine and sat outside to enjoy the sunshine.