Colombia (South America)

That’s Colombia with an O……This was one of my first lessons when I first began working at a local coffee shop, back in 2012. I brought a bag of Colombian coffee to my uncle’s house in North Carolina, from my coffee shop for Thanksgiving. His wife is Colombian and he pointed out to me that my spelling of Columbia, was that of the state capital of our neighbor South Carolina, it was not how you spelled the country. This was the first ignorance I discovered. My second, Colombia isn’t the #1 producer in the world, it’s not even #2. In the words of Ricky Bobby, “if you ain’t first, your last.” In this case, they’re third, at least that’s bronze. This is always a fun fact that shocks Americans, since Juan Valdez taught us through crafty marketing that Colombia was #1.

This brings me to why I wanted to feature this country, the first South American country I have written about. Colombia is misrepresented in so many ways, among others being known for growing cocaine. By the way there’s a great movement called “coffee for coca/cocaine.” The goal of this movement is to help farmers replace their crops with coffee, instead of the plants they previously grew for cocaine. This country’s coffee tradition, was started in a similar manner to last month’s India. During Spanish settling in the 1700’s, a Jesuit priest brought coffee to this region and from there this region with it’s wide variety of micro climates has blossomed into one of the worlds greatest producers. Colombia offers a wide variety of coffees including a Colombian Gesha, which is a hybrid of the premier Panama Gesha. I am currently roasting with both of these beans to see the difference and quality. *Update: It has become a huge hit at my local farmers markets to where I am working on carrying it more regularly.

In close I want to focus on what Juan Valdez meant to coffee. He was used as a marketing tool to promote authentic coffee from 1 region of the world. Previous and in many cases currently, roasters blend their coffee. Colombia wanted to stand out, that their coffee was 100% pure and never blended with a lesser bean. This was inspirational to read considering, I too chose not to blend when I began roasting. I learned many roasters simply do this to show variety, despite only having a couple beans in inventory that they bought in large quantity, to sell for cheap.

The other cheap angle is blending lesser quality beans like Robusta, with higher quality Arabica beans. There’s some benefit to this, like added caffeine, but rarely does it produce a great coffee, usually just something worth consuming on a budget. I will be honest, I struggled to make my Espresso blend. Previously I just roasted a nice Brazilian or Indian bean to make espresso. In wanting to keep with tradition, I decided to make this 1 blend, which I call Traditional Italian Espresso. Beyond that, I like the Colombian’s philosophy, share an authentic bean, representative of the region.

I met the 4th generation of Juan Valdez at the SCA Coffee Expo in Boston 2022