That coffee you grab to start your day represents more — way more — than something to wake you up.
As you sip your favourite morning brew, you probably aren’t thinking about what type of beans were used, where they were grown, who farmed them or how they arrived at your breakfast table or drive-through window.
But coffee beans are to Colombia what wheat is to Canada and its farmers — the country’s largest agricultural export.
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Colombia, dubbed the Gateway to South America, boasts ideal soil on the slopes of the Andes and abundant rain making the country a world-class place to grow high-quality Arabica coffee.
Then there’s also how it’s growen, with hand-picked harvesting perfected over generations.
Coffee beans, the seeds of a coffee cherry, grow on a variety of species, both trees and shrubs. Of the two main species, Arabica and Robusta, Arabica, the most popular worldwide, flourishes in Colombia. The varietal is expensive to grow because of its sensitivity to the environment. The trees and shrubs require shade, humidity and steady temperatures between 16 and 21 C
Coffea arabica came to the area from Ethiopia in the early 1700s by way of the Dutch East Indies. Most historians credit the introduction to the Dutch Jesuit monks who farmed in Valle del Cauca in the mountainous northeast, but others credit Father Romero, a parochial priest who prescribed planting coffee seeds as penance for parishioners’ confessed sins.
Either way, or both, the little plants took off.
In the early 1800s, Colombia began to export commercially. A century later, the country had become one of the largest coffee-producing countries in the world. Today, it ranks third, behind Brazil and Vietnam and enjoys accolades as the best “soft” coffee producer worldwide.
“Soft coffee does not mean weak coffee,” says Juan Filipe Lozano, a Colombian-certified specialty coffee master and CEO of Caffa Colombia. “It is like we Colombians are, sweet and friendly, never bitter and you cannot get enough of it.”
Lozano was speaking recently to a group of travel journalists in Bogotá. He described how coffee culture worldwide has been riding a wave — four of them, actually — since the beginning of the 20th century.
During the first wave, coffee beans were considered a single farm commodity. Think canola or soybeans. Instant coffee surfaced during the Second World War to keep U.S. soldiers alert and fighting.
After the war, coffee chains and branded products marked the beginning of the second wave. So did an Italian invention. Luigi Bezzera, an impatient Venetian businessman, wanting his morning cuppa pronto, began to experiment. He discovered that incorporating steam into the process slashed the brew time and — bonus — created a more robust drink. Et voila! Espresso.
At the beginning of the 1990s, U.S. cities such as New York and Seattle ushered in the third wave by tracking the origin of the beans and by creating brand-name recognition. Consumers began to ask, “Where does my coffee come from?” Major cities around the world recognized a marketing opportunity and shifted the focus from commodity to specialty products.
Enter the fourth wave. “It belongs to us,” Lozano says. “Colombia has moved from tradition to innovation. Many people travel for wine or craft beer. Visitors, especially millennials and centennials, are now coming to Colombia specifically to learn about coffee.” The result? Bogotá, the largest city and the capital, has become a coffee tourism destination and the capital of the fourth wave.
COVID-19 has also played a role in the fourth wave. In response to mandated work-from-home policies, many consumers began experimenting with their own specialty coffee drinks at home. Gen Zs, in particular, began showing a preference for cold coffee drinks. As a result, this has boosted the specialty coffee demand across North and South America.
In Bogotá, you will find a plethora of craft coffee roasters and specialty coffee shops, including Juan Valdez stores that outnumber Starbucks by 15 to 1. You’ll also find a Juan Valdez shop in most towns and cities throughout the country.
Juan Valdez, a fictional coffee farmer and his mule, Conchita, were the 1958 brainchild of a New York marketing agency. Their client, the Colombian Federation of Coffee Growers, was eager to validate and promote 100 per cent genuine Colombian coffee. Valdez, in his signature wide-brimmed hat plus his trusty four-footed sidekick, has been everywhere since, making it easy for consumers to identify the genuine article. “Wildly successful” doesn’t begin to describe the results of this campaign. (Note: Juan Valdez coffee launched into Canada’s retail and e-commerce coffee market in 2022.)
As the melting pot for coffee from all regions of the country, Bogotá lets visitors discover a multitude of flavours, depending on where the beans grow. Each specialty coffee shop becomes an embassy of the different regions of the country. From the north you get deeper, earthier flavours, richer body and medium acidity, with notes of nuts and chocolate. Coffee from central Colombia is balanced with fruity and herbal notes and with coffee from the south, you can expect a smooth high sweetness, medium body with pronounced acidity and citrus notes. “We even have a coffee that tastes like wine, because the beans have gone through a fermentation process,” says Lozano
The best way to enjoy a hands-on coffee experience is a leisurely visit to a coffee shop such as Juan Lozano’s top-rated Caffa Colombia. Like a wine cellar for coffee, you can participate in barista tastings, enjoy the best coffees paired with tempting pastries and desserts, and learn coffee is more than a taste-good refresher; there’s a story in every cup.
At 2,600 metres above sea level, Bogotá is too high to grow coffee beans. But you don’t need to travel far to visit a plantation. Outside the town of Fusagasugá, a 90-minute drive south of the capital, Hacienda Coloma, a colonial-era hacienda and working coffee farm, welcomes visitors for daily plantation tours. While strolling through stunning, jungle-like gardens, Jessica, our guide, gave us a seed-to-sip tutorial about production and processing.
Then, as we picked coffee “cherries,” Jessica explained the value of choosing only ripe cherries to get the best flavour. “The colours vary with the species and change as they ripen,” she says. “Female pickers often paint their nails the exact colour of ripe cherry to eliminate any guesswork.”
Green beans are roasted at high heat to release the rich aroma and flavour we love. They are then cooled and ground. The lighter the roast, the lighter the colour and flavour and the higher the acidity. Dark roasts have less acidity and a bitter flavour, making medium-dark, or French roast, the most popular.
We marvelled at a working example of a Second World War Willys Jeep and learned how these sturdy vehicles have become the mule replacement, transporting sacks of beans over bumpy mountain terrain. Our tour ended with a tasting, an outdoor lunch and an opportunity to shop for the farm’s signature coffee liqueur. Could we be forgiven for dozing on the drive back to the city?
The Federación Nacional de Cafeteros (the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia), a non-profit business association, founded in 1927, is probably the most powerful trade group in the country. It’s also the predominant factor in how a nation of small, independent coffee farmers became a world leader. Their mission: to “improve the quality of life of coffee growers and promote the quality of Colombian coffee worldwide.” The organization represents more than 500,000 producers throughout the country. Most are family-owned farms of less than 12 acres. About 30 per cent of the growers and most of the pickers are women. Coffee production provides income for 25 per cent of the population, making it the most important business in the country.
In 2011, UNESCO designated Colombia’s Coffee Cultural Landscape a World Heritage Site citing its sustainable blend of culture and productivity, showing how farms can be the foundation of a strong economy even in the country’s high, mountainous forests, and today, Juan Lozano, will tell you he doesn’t care if the cup is half-empty or half-full as long as it contains good Colombian coffee.
Apparently, others think so too. Worldwide, fans consume 2.8 billion cups of coffee a day, making it the second-most popular beverage in the world after water.
