The Best Farms, Winemakers, and Small Producers Around Protaras, Paralimni, and Ayia Napa

If you've read about Cyprus's farm to table scene in the Troodos mountains, you might expect the same story here on the east coast. It's a different one, and worth telling honestly. Protaras, Paralimni, and Ayia Napa sit in a region called the Kokkinochoria, the "Red Villages," and its fame has nothing to do with wine. It's about red soil, and what grows in it.

The Land Behind the Beaches

The Kokkinochoria stretches across the southeastern tip of Cyprus and takes its name from the deep red, iron-rich soil found here, unlike anything in the rest of the island. It covers around 14 villages, including Paralimni, Deryneia, Sotira, Frenaros, Avgorou, Liopetri, and Ayia Napa itself. Most of the people who live in these villages either farm the land or work in the tourism industry along the coast during the summer months, and often both, depending on the season.

That red soil, combined with the region's near-constant sunshine, produces some of the most distinctive vegetables and fruit in Cyprus. This is the island's breadbasket for a handful of crops in particular, and getting to know them is really the best way to understand farm to table dining here.

The Region's Star Crops

Cyprus potatoes. This is the crop the Kokkinochoria is best known for, and the region grows enough to export across Europe. The red soil gives the potatoes a distinct, earthy flavour that locals are genuinely proud of. Xylofagou, one of the Kokkinochoria villages, even has a potato statue in its town square.

Deryneia strawberries. Deryneia is considered the birthplace of commercial strawberry growing in Cyprus, going back roughly 55 years to a local pioneering farmer. It remains the country's leading strawberry producer by far, and the village holds a biennial Pancyprian Strawberry Festival with fresh strawberries, jams, juices, and ice cream for anyone who shows up.

Sotira kolokasi. Kolokasi is a taro-like root vegetable, and the version grown around Sotira, a Kokkinochoria village, is significant enough to have its own registered Protected Designation of Origin, "Kolokasi Sotiras." Sotira grows the large majority of Cyprus's total kolokasi crop. It's traditionally cooked slow, often as a stew with pork or wine, known locally as kolokasi kapamas.

Watermelon. Watermelon is a Kokkinochoria summer staple, sold straight off the backs of farmers' trucks parked along the rural roads through July and August. Frenaros, another of the Red Villages, holds its own Watermelon Festival in mid-July, with local chefs cooking up watermelon dishes and even watermelon ice cream.

Artichokes and citrus. Both are grown throughout the Kokkinochoria alongside the headline crops, and both show up regularly on the tables of the traditional tavernas scattered through the villages.

Farms and Small Producers Worth Visiting

CyHerbia Botanical Park, Avgorou. Founded in 2004 by herbalist Miranda Tringis and her husband Adam, CyHerbia began as a small medicinal plant nursery and has grown into a working organic herb farm open to visitors, just outside Avgorou, a short drive from Ayia Napa and Protaras. The park grows certified organic Mediterranean herbs across nine themed gardens, distills its own essential oils on site, and sells the results, teas, oils, and cosmetics, through its own shop. There's also a bistro and tea room for lunch among the lavender. It's the clearest example of an actual working small producer you can walk through in this part of the island.

Farmers Traditional Cypriot Tavern, Ayia Napa. Run by a family that has farmed in the area for seven generations, this taverna leans directly on produce from the family's own farms for most of what ends up on the table. It's less a farm visit than a place where the farm to table connection is genuinely direct rather than a marketing phrase.

The village festivals themselves. The Frenaros Watermelon Festival and the Deryneia Strawberry Festival aren't polished tourist experiences, they're real village events where local farmers and small producers set up, sell, and cook what they grow. If your visit lines up with one, it's one of the most honest ways to meet the people actually growing this region's food.

Roadside farm stands. Through the summer months, informal stands and truck-bed sales along the roads between the Kokkinochoria villages are how a lot of locals actually buy their watermelon and vegetables. It's worth slowing down for if you're driving through Sotira, Frenaros, Liopetri, or Avgorou.

What About Wine?

Here's the honest part. Unlike the Troodos foothills or the Krasochoria wine villages, the Famagusta district around Ayia Napa and Protaras has very few actual vineyards or wineries of its own. What you'll find locally are good wine bars and specialty wine shops in Ayia Napa and Protaras that curate bottles from Cyprus's real wine regions, Limassol, Paphos, and the Troodos mountains, rather than producing wine on site.

If you want an actual winery visit, the honest move is a day trip inland. Tour operators based in this area, including Cyprus Taste Tours, run scheduled day trips from Ayia Napa, Protaras, Pernera, and Paralimni into the mountain wine villages, generally six to nine hours round trip, stopping at family wineries for tastings alongside visits to halloumi and honey producers. It's not a local wine scene, but it is a genuine way to reach one from where you're staying.

Visiting Tips

• The Kokkinochoria villages are a short drive from Ayia Napa and Protaras, most within 15 to 30 minutes, so a rental car makes it easy to combine a few stops in a single day.

• Watermelon and strawberry season peaks in the summer months, and the Frenaros and Deryneia festivals are worth checking dates for if you want to catch one.

• CyHerbia is reachable by local bus (routes 702, 705, 712, and 713 from Avgorou) if you'd rather skip driving, though it involves a short walk from the bus stop.

• Bring cash for roadside farm stands. Many are small, informal operations without card readers.

• If wine is the priority, book a mountain day tour in advance during peak summer season, since small operators run limited group sizes.

• Ask before photographing at family farms and tavernas. Most people are glad to talk about what they grow, but it's their home and livelihood, not a photo backdrop.
  

The Kokkinochoria won't give you vineyard views or wine cellar tours. What it gives you instead is red earth potatoes, strawberries grown by the same families for generations, and an organic herb farm you can actually walk through, which is its own kind of farm to table honesty.