Las Marías & Maricao, Puerto Rico
A working coffee farm in the mountains of western Puerto Rico.
Copper Hill is about 500 acres of coffee, shade trees and mountain forest on the line between Las Marías and Maricao. The land was once two coffee estates, Hacienda Paoli and Hacienda La Florida.
The farm was purchased in 2018. The first acre was cleared by hand and planted with 1,500 coffee and shade trees, and the work has continued one slope at a time since then.
Coffee farms sell the bean and leave the rest of the tree behind. At Copper Hill we also harvest the coffee leaf, from April through September, ahead of the cherry harvest in the fall.
The Copper Hill Research Station, based on the farm, studies how that leaf harvest affects the trees and what it could add to a grower's income.
Most of Copper Hill is forest. Streams run through the ravines, tree ferns grow along the ridges, and the canopy holds birds found only in Puerto Rico. We farm the open slopes and look after the rest.
Copper Hill is a working farm, so visits are by arrangement. Write to us with what brings you here, your dates and the size of your group.