The History, Culture, and Stories of Colombia Santa Rita Estate's Premium Single-Origin Coffee Beans

The History, Culture, and Stories of Colombia Santa Rita Estate Premium Single-Origin Beans

The primary coffee variety in Colombia is Arabica. The plant is a small tree or large shrub, 5-8 meters tall, typically with many branches at the base. Old branches are grayish-white with swollen nodes, while young branches are hairless and flattened. The leaves are thin and leathery, ovate-lanceolate or lanceolate, 6-14 cm long and 3.5-5 cm wide, with a long, tapering apex 10-15 mm long, a wedge-shaped or slightly obtuse base, rarely circular, and entire or shallowly wavy margins; they are hairless on both surfaces, with or without small pits in the vein axils beneath. The midrib is prominent on both leaf surfaces, with 7-13 lateral veins on each side. The petiole is 8-15 mm long. Stipules are broadly triangular, with conical long tips or awn tips on upper young branches and often pointed tips on old branches, 3-6 mm long. Several cymes cluster in the leaf axils, each with 2-5 flowers, without peduncles or with very short ones. The flowers are fragrant, with pedicels 0.5-1 mm long. The bracts are partially fused at the base and come in two types: two broadly triangular, nearly equal in length and width, and two lanceolate, twice as long as wide and leaf-like. The calyx tube is cylindrical, 2.5-3 mm long, with a truncate calyx limb or 5 small teeth. The corolla is white, 10-18 mm long depending on variety, usually 5-lobed at the apex, rarely 4- or 6-lobed, with lobes often longer than the corolla tube and usually obtuse at the tip. The anthers extend beyond the corolla tube, 6-8 mm long. The style is 12-14 mm long, with a 2-lobed stigma 3-4 mm long. The berry is broadly elliptical when ripe, red, 12-16 mm long and 10-12 mm in diameter, with a hard membranous exocarp and a fleshy, sweet mesocarp. The seed is convex on the dorsal side and flat on the ventral side with longitudinal grooves, 8-10 mm long and 5-7 mm in diameter. Flowering lasts from March to April.

Colombia Santa Rita (Washed, Medium-Dark Roast): Sugarcane, Clean, Medium Body

Santa Rita Estate is located in Antioquia Province, Colombia, and processes its coffee the traditional way: the cherries are hand-picked, the fruit conventionally washed, and the processed beans laid out on racks to sun-dry. The environment surrounding the Andes provides this growing region with fertile volcanic soil and unique water resources.

Coffee cultivation requires sunlight and appropriate shade, and thrives best in fertile land or volcanic ash soil. That is why coffee is so widely distributed: across South America, Central America, the West Indies, Asia, Africa, Arabia, the South Pacific, and Oceania. Ethiopia and Tanzania in Africa; Brazil, Colombia, Jamaica, Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, and Costa Rica in Central and South America; and Vietnam and Indonesia in Southeast Asia are all major producers. In South America, Brazil accounts for 30-50% of world production, while Colombia accounts for 10-20%.

Colombia

Population: 47,073,000

Colombia has well-defined growing regions and produces an impressive variety of coffees. Whether you prefer rounded, heavy flavors or refreshing, fruity ones (or anything in between), a Colombian bean will most likely fit the bill. Divided by geography, the country's coffees share many common characteristics: if you like coffee from one region, chances are you will like coffee from the others. Colombian coffee trees have two harvests each year: the main harvest and a second one locally called the "mitaca."

Cauca

Cauca is most famous for the coffee grown around the Meseta de Popayan, near Inza and the city of Popayan. The high-altitude plateau provides favorable growing conditions: close to the equator and ringed by mountains that shield the coffee from Pacific humidity and the southern trade winds, it enjoys a very stable climate year-round. The region's coffee also benefits from significant volcanic soil. Historically, there is a single rainy season from October to December each year.

Altitude: 1,700-2,100m

Harvest: March-June (main crop), November-December (mitaca crop)

Tolima

Tolima's remote highlands long made access difficult, and the region suffered from years of conflict. Its high-quality coffee comes from small farmers cultivating tiny micro-plots and exporting through cooperatives.

Altitude: 1,200-1,900m

Harvest: March-June (main crop), October-December (mitaca crop)

Varieties: 9% Typica, 74% Caturra, 17% Castillo

Narino

Some of Colombia's highest quality coffees grow in Narino, considered the most stunning and complex in flavor. Growing coffee in many of these high-altitude areas is challenging, and the trees can be susceptible to leaf rust; however, Narino sits close enough to the equator for the climate to suit coffee cultivation. Among Narino's 40,000 producers, the vast majority are small farmers, each cultivating less than 2 hectares (4.4 acres). Many form groups and organizations to support one another and to work with the FNC. In fact, the average farm size is under 1 hectare (2.2 acres), with only 37 producers in the region owning more than 5 hectares (11 acres).

Altitude: 1,500-2,300m (4,900-7,500ft)

Harvest: April-June

Varieties: 54% Typica, 29% Caturra, 17% Castillo

Huila

Huila has an excellent combination of soil and geographic advantages for coffee cultivation, and some of the most complex, fruit-forward Colombian coffees come from here. The region has over 70,000 coffee growers covering more than 16,000 hectares (39,500 acres).

Altitude: 1,250-2,000m

Harvest: September-December (main crop), April-May (mitaca crop)

Main varieties: 11% Typica, 75% Caturra, 14% Castillo

Thanks to a special combination of factors, Colombia's growing latitude and altitude, its soils, the botanical origin of its coffee varieties, the climate and rain patterns created by the dual paths of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, terrain and light intensity that shift within a single day, favorable temperatures year-round, and well-distributed rainfall, along with shared cultural practices such as selective harvesting and washed, sun-dried processing, coffee grows exceptionally well here. The climate is mild, the air humid, and harvesting can happen year-round without seasonal limits, which is why Colombian coffee quality is so consistently high. Colombia has three Cordillera ranges running north-south, extensions of the Andes, with coffee planted along their highlands. The mountain terraces create diverse microclimates so that different coffees mature at different times, keeping it harvest season all year. Unlike Brazil, Colombia need not fear frost. The country has approximately 2.7 billion documented coffee trees, 66% of them grown in modern plantations and the rest on traditional small farms.

Today, Vietnam in Asia has surpassed Colombia in coffee production, and Indonesia has grown into the world's fourth-largest producer. In 1721, the French naval officer Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu overcame countless difficulties to carry the first coffee seedling from Africa to Martinique in Latin America, marking the origin of Latin American coffee cultivation. Because France was then under Bourbon rule, the Arabica grown in Latin America acquired another name still renowned in the coffee world today: "Bourbon." Bourbon remains an important branch of Arabica. Latin American coffee as a whole is defined by balance, since virtually every coffee flavor can be found there. The common use of wet processing for green beans is another Latin American hallmark; good processing yields beans larger and more uniform than African coffees, with lower defect rates. Colombia is one of the world's largest producers of quality coffee, a brilliant gem on the world coffee map, a coffee land favored by nature. Its Arabica is cultivated on steep foothill slopes at 800-1900 meters, all hand-picked and washed.

Colombia's climate offers coffee a true "natural pasture." The trees are cultivated mainly in the Andes on steep slopes around 1,300 meters, where the annual temperature averages approximately 18°C and annual rainfall 2000-3000 mm, within latitude 1°-11°15' N and longitude 72°-78° W, with certain altitude zones exceeding 2,000 meters.

Varieties: Catuai, Caturra

Estate: Santa Rita

The History of Coffee Cultivation in Colombia

Coffee cultivation in Colombia can be traced back to the Spanish colonial era of the 16th century, and there are several theories about how coffee arrived:

First: it is said to have come from the Caribbean island of Haiti, arriving by sea via El Salvador in Central America.

Second: in 1808, a priest introduced coffee beans to Colombia for the first time from the French Antilles via Venezuela. Another version holds that Colombia's first coffee seeds entered through Santander Province from Venezuela.

Third: the earliest record of Colombian coffee cultivation appears in the book "The Illustrated Orinoca" by the Spanish missionary Jose Gumilla, who described his experiences as a missionary along the Meta River in 1730 and mentioned local coffee plantations. By 1787, other missionaries had spread coffee to other parts of Colombia.

Pour-Over Colombia Santa Rita

Use 15g of coffee at a medium grind (small Fuji ghost-tooth burr at #4) in a V60 dripper with water at 88-89°C. First pour 30g of water and bloom for 27 seconds; pour up to 105g and stop. Once the coffee bed drops to half its height, pour again slowly up to 225g, avoiding the tail end of the water. Coffee-to-water ratio 1:15, extraction time 2:00.

Flavor: Sugarcane, clean, medium body

Colombia, in northwestern South America, is a beautiful country with a long history. Indigenous peoples have lived and thrived on this land since ancient times. It became a Spanish colony in 1531 and gained independence in 1819, taking its current name in 1886 in honor of Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of the American continent. Colombia boasts beautiful mountains and rivers, pleasant scenery, a comfortable spring-like climate, and fresh air. The country is rich in natural resources, with coffee, flowers, gold, and emeralds known as the "four treasures." Today it is the second-largest coffee producer after Brazil, the world's largest exporter of Arabica coffee beans, and the largest exporter of washed coffee beans. Colombian coffee is often described as silky-smooth; among all coffees it has the best balance, with soft, smooth flavors enjoyable at any time, and it has earned praise no other coffee can match: the name "green gold."

The Caturra Variety

Caturra is a natural variant of the Arabica Bourbon variety, discovered in Brazil in 1937. The plant is shorter and more compact than Bourbon. Having inherited Bourbon's lineage, its disease resistance is relatively weak, but its yield is higher. Although discovered in Brazil, Caturra is not well suited to growing there and was never cultivated on a large scale in its birthplace; instead it became widely popular across Central and South America, with large-scale cultivation in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua.

Beyond its botanical traits, people care most about Caturra's flavor. The higher the altitude it is grown at, the better the quality, though yields fall accordingly. Lightly roasted, Caturra shows obvious acidic aromas and overall brightness. With proper processing its sweetness can perform very well, but the body is relatively lighter than Bourbon's, and the clarity of the cup is somewhat lacking.

Caturra usually produces red cherries, but in very rare regions there are yellow Caturra varieties, such as in Hawaii, where a very few yellow Caturras are cultivated.

The Catuai Variety

Catuai is an artificially hybridized variety, a cross of Caturra and Mundo Novo. It has good resistance to natural disasters, particularly wind and rain.

Catuai trees are relatively short, and compared with other coffee trees their fruit grows more densely, making it harder to pick. The cherries come in both red and yellow types. To date, no superior flavor has been found in the yellow fruits; in fact, some cuppers have found that although certain yellow-fruited coffees show good acidity, the clarity of the cup is worse than that of red fruits.

Catuai was developed in Brazil and is now widely cultivated throughout Central America as well.

Colombia Santa Rita Special Reserve

Country: Colombia
Region: Antioquia Province
Altitude: 1600-2100 meters
Processing Method: Washed

Santa Rita Estate lies in Antioquia Province, in a micro-region adjacent to the Andes Mountains. This premium coffee is produced through the collaboration of 9 nearby farms, which still process coffee the traditional way: hand-picking the cherries, washing the fruit conventionally, and laying the beans on racks to sun-dry. The Andean environment provides the region with fertile volcanic soil and unique water resources.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If Santa Rita's clean, sugarcane-sweet profile speaks to you, FrontStreet Coffee's washed Huila is a natural companion from Colombia's most celebrated region. Huila's hill country sits above 1500 meters where the country's great rivers converge, bringing abundant water; roasted medium-dark, it highlights black chocolate and nutty sweetness with a moderate body and works beautifully as pour-over, French press, moka pot, or espresso for Americanos and lattes.

For a fruitier, more experimental expression of Colombia, FrontStreet Coffee's Boundary Estate Sidra is an anaerobic natural, fermented in a sealed low-oxygen tank to develop rich tropical fruit aromas; roasted medium-light, it cups with passion fruit, grape, apricot, and dried-fruit sweetness in pour-over, cold brew, drip bag, or moka pot. And if you brew espresso at home, FrontStreet Coffee's Premium Blend pairs Brazil's creamy nuttiness with Colombia's dark chocolate bitterness, pulling a fine golden crema that makes a naturally sweet, velvety latte, a friendly choice for newcomers.