Colombia Santa Rita Washed Specialty Coffee Beans: Varieties, Brand Recommendations, and Estates

Caturra and Catuai Coffee Varieties

Caturra is a natural variant of the Arabica Bourbon variety, discovered in Brazil in 1937. Its plant is smaller and more compact than Bourbon. Because of its Bourbon heritage it has relatively weak disease resistance, but it yields more than Bourbon. Although it was discovered in Brazil, Caturra is not well suited to growing there and was never planted on a large scale in the country. Instead it became widely popular across Central and South America, with Colombia, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua cultivating it extensively.

Botanical detail aside, you may care more about Caturra's flavor. The higher the altitude, the better the quality — and correspondingly, the lower the yield. Lightly roasted, Caturra shows prominent acidic aromas and overall brightness. With proper processing its sweetness can be excellent, but its body is lower than Bourbon's and its mouthfeel somewhat less clean.

Typically Caturra produces red cherries, but in very rare regions yellow Caturra appears. Hawaii, for example, cultivates a very small amount of yellow Caturra.

Catuai is a variety created by artificially hybridizing Caturra and Mundo Novo. Catuai resists natural disasters well, particularly wind and rain.

Catuai plants are relatively short. Compared with other coffee trees, Catuai's fruit grows more firmly attached and is harder to pick. The fruit comes in both red and yellow forms. To date, no significant flavor advantage has been found in yellow fruit over red; in fact, some cuppings have shown that while coffee from yellow fruit may have good acidity, its mouthfeel is less clean than that from red fruit.

Catuai was developed in Brazil and is now widely grown across Central America.

Pour-over Brewing Method

Colombia Santa Rita pour-over method: 15g coffee grounds, medium grind (using Fuji's ghost tooth burr grinder setting 4), V60 dripper, water temperature 88-89°C. First pour 30g water and let bloom for 27 seconds. Continue pouring to 105g, then pause and wait until the water level in the coffee bed drops to half before continuing. Slowly pour until reaching 225g total, avoiding the tail end. Water-to-coffee ratio is 1:15, with a total extraction time of 2:00.

Product Information

Manufacturer: FrontStreet Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee)
Address: No. 10 Bao'an Front Street, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou
Contact: 020-38364473
Ingredients: House-roasted coffee beans
Shelf life: 90 days
Net weight: 227g
Packaging: Bulk
Flavor profile: Rich and mellow
Coffee bean state: Roasted coffee beans
Sugar content: Sugar-free
Origin: Colombia
Coffee type: Colombian coffee
Roast level: Medium roast

Colombia Santa Rita Special Reserve

Country: Colombia

Region: Antioquia Department

Altitude: 1,600-2,100 meters

Processing method: Washed

Hacienda Santa Rita lies in the Antioquia Department of Colombia, in a micro-region beside the Andes Mountains. This premium coffee is produced collaboratively by 9 nearby farms. All 9 still process coffee the traditional way: hand-picking the cherries, then applying traditional washed processing, with the beans dried on raised beds in the sun. The Andes surroundings give this growing region fertile volcanic soil and exceptionally abundant water.

Varieties: Catuai, Caturra

Estate: Santa Rita

Colombian Coffee History

The history of coffee cultivation in Colombia reaches back to the Spanish colonial era in the 16th century. Several accounts describe how coffee arrived:

One theory holds that coffee came by water routes from Haiti in the Caribbean, through El Salvador in Central America.

Another states that in 1808 a priest first brought coffee beans to Colombia from the French Antilles via Venezuela. One version says the country's first coffee seeds entered through Santander Department from Venezuela.

A third theory holds that the earliest record of coffee cultivation in Colombia appears in the Spanish missionary Jose Gumilla's book "The Illustrated Orinoca." He described his experiences evangelizing along both banks of the Meta River in 1730 and mentioned local coffee plantations; by 1787 other missionaries had spread coffee to other parts of Colombia.

Flavor profile: Sugarcane sweetness, clean, medium body

Colombia: Coffee Paradise

Located in northwestern South America, Colombia is a beautiful country with a long history. From ancient times indigenous peoples lived and thrived on this land. It became a Spanish colony in 1531 and gained independence in 1819. In 1886 it was renamed to its current name in honor of Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of the American continent.

Colombia boasts beautiful mountains and landscapes, weather that feels like spring year-round, and fresh air. It is rich in natural resources, with coffee, flowers, gold, and emeralds celebrated as its "four treasures."

Today Colombia is the second-largest coffee producer after Brazil, the world's largest exporter of Arabica coffee beans, and the world's largest exporter of washed coffee beans. Colombian coffee is often described as having a silky-smooth mouthfeel. Among all coffees it offers the best balance, with a soft, smooth texture that makes it enjoyable to drink at any time. It has earned praise no other coffee can match: it is known as "green gold."

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

As the largest coffee-producing country in the world, Brazil offers an enormous range of flavors. FrontStreet's Brazilian beans carry moderate acidity, with a fine balance of sweetness, bitterness, and body, which makes them especially well suited to a medium roast — the roast that draws out a nutty aroma and a rich, mellow cup with a faint acidity, equally good as a single origin or in a blend.

If you simply want a first taste of Brazilian terroir, FrontStreet's Cerrado half-sun-dried bean is a thoroughly classic single-origin Brazilian cup. Cerrado is a well-known growing region noted for high-quality coffee, and this lot belongs to the red Bourbon variety common across South America. At a medium roast it shows an intense aroma of creamy peanut, toast, caramel, and hazelnut, with a round body, no sourness, and a slight bitter note; it pours well as a hand-brew and also shines in a moka pot, as an espresso SOE, in a siphon, or in a French press.

FrontStreet's Queen's Farm single origin comes from Mogiana, close to South Minas, where fertile red volcanic soil lets the cherries absorb abundant nutrients and develop a full aroma. The area splits between farms holding to traditional practice and others adopting modern, standardized management, and local quality has improved greatly as a result. The Queen's Farm lot is the rare Yellow Bourbon — a genetic mutation of Red Bourbon with cleaner fruit tones — and through a hand-brew, a moka pot, or a home espresso machine it reveals a sugarcane-like clarity no other origin offers, alongside fruit and chocolate notes. Brazilian beans also sit at the base of many of FrontStreet's espresso blends: the balanced, low-acid profile and friendly price have made Brazil a first choice for reputable Italian-style recipes, and its contribution of chocolate and cream aromas, soft sweet-sour-bitter interplay, and even temperament helps keep extraction stable.