Correct Flavor and Taste Descriptions of Different Colombian Coffee Bean Regions - Colombian Coffee Growing Areas

Introduction to Colombian Coffee Diversity

Coffee beans from different regions show different flavors, and Colombian coffee is exceptionally diverse. Each of the 20 coffee-producing departments, out of the country's 32, produces coffee slightly different from the next.

In the northern regions of Santa Marta and Santander, lower altitudes and higher temperatures give the coffee a rich aroma and deeper flavors.

In the central "coffee belt" of Antioquia, Caldas, Quindio, and other departments, coffee tends to be well rounded, with nutty and chocolate notes, mild sweetness, and rich acidity.

In the southern departments of Nariño, Cauca, and Huila, higher-altitude coffees tend to have higher acidity, floral notes, and complex flavors.

It is not really complicated. Just as different coffee varieties taste different, whether Blue Mountain coffee, Mandheling, or Geisha, their flavor profiles vary enormously.

FrontStreet Coffee takes you through Colombia's main coffee-producing regions.

Antioquia

Antioquia was the country's "Wild West" for many years, first settled almost entirely by gold miners. In the latter half of the 19th century, coffee was introduced to the department's mountainous, fertile frontier, and Antioquia became one of Colombia's most important coffee-producing regions, helped by ideal growing conditions as the Central and Western mountain ranges (Cordilleras) pass through. By the 1980s, coffee was the region's most important export product. Despite the department's ideal environment for specialty coffee, it was overlooked for years within Colombia's strong portfolio of coffee regions. That situation is changing rapidly, partly through the priorities of the department's current governor, Sergio Fajardo. Fajardo served as mayor of Medellín, Antioquia's capital, a city long known for violence and danger. He led a remarkable transformation of the city, turning it into a world-class tourist destination with a strong economy. Coffee, and value-added production by the department, has sat at the core of this makeover, and today Antioquia truly deserves its place on the coffee map. Mercanta and our partners in the region have certainly played a part as well.

Cauca

Cauca's coffee includes the Inzá region and the area around the colonial city of Popayán. This region lies on the "Macizo Colombiano" (Colombian Massif), which surrounds the high peaks of Tolima and Huila, and besides being a major coffee-growing area is also an important source of water and wildlife.

Mercanta works primarily here with an innovative, progressive cooperative whose micro-lot separation program has inspired many other producer organizations across the country. Every lot of coffee delivered to the cooperative is cupped and scored, and those scoring 85 points or above by the association's cupping lab in Pedregal are set aside for specialty blends or single-producer micro-lots. These strict standards mean only a very limited quantity of a special blend of 70%+ Caturra and approximately 30% Variedad Colombia is available for export, and they further highlight the work of individual producers whose coffee would previously have been lost in larger lots.

The region's past violence and significant presence of FARC guerrillas historically hindered the FNC (Colombian National Coffee Committee) and specialty-focused exporters from operating here. With the reduction of violence, growers in the region have gained greater access to quality markets, taking advantage not only of the region's wonderful coffee-growing conditions but also of the economic resources brought by nearby tourist destinations, such as the World Heritage site "Parque Nacional Arqueológico de Tierradentro." Mercanta fully expects the region's coffee to keep getting better.

Chocó

Most of Chocó's coffee is grown near the municipality of El Carmen de Atrato, separated by just a steep ridge from the fertile coffee-growing slopes of southwestern Antioquia. This region is rich in biodiversity and is also one of Colombia's most remote areas, historically suffering from violence and isolation due to the presence of FARC guerrillas.

Eastern Chocó was one of Colombia's most important coffee-producing regions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today much of the department is covered by dense, nearly impenetrable tropical rainforest that extends 100 kilometers eastward to the Pacific. Chocó's coffee-producing area lies within the mountain range bordering Antioquia, and with no other viable routes to move coffee out of the department, virtually all Chocó coffee is milled in Antioquia and traditionally sold as Antioquia coffee. Market-access challenges have also meant that Chocó has received less attention for its coffee in recent years than its eastern neighbor.

That neighbor, Antioquia, has recently celebrated government programs and successes that have inspired many producers in the region to regroup their coffee production efforts. Their efforts have been supported by the Cooperativa de Caficultores de Andes (Cooperandes), a Colombian cooperative working in five municipalities, Andes, Betania, Jardín, Cuidad Bolivar, and Hispania (all in Antioquia), plus El Carmen de Atrato (Chocó), and it has been very active in promoting high-quality coffee in the region. Mercanta began sourcing from this region in 2015, and the signs for the future are very good as well.

Huila

Huila province is more remote than Cauca, yet it is famous for the quality of its coffee and is rapidly becoming Colombia's largest coffee-producing region.

In Huila, Mercanta works primarily with a cooperative that collaborates with producers near the town of Timaná in the southern part of the province. Every weekend during the harvest season, Asprotimaná members bring their parchment coffee to Timaná. There, each coffee is analyzed and cupped by the association's professional team of cuppers, all trained to the most rigorous standards. If the coffee comes from a grower who has previously produced very high-quality coffee, or if it cups above 84 points, samples are sent to Mercanta's partner Santa Barbara Estate Coffee, whose dry mill is in Medellín. There the Santa Barbara team cups the coffee again. Only the best samples from each harvest are sent to Mercanta for its own evaluation. During the 2014/15 harvest, Santa Barbara cupped more than 1,500 samples to select coffees to be separated as micro-lots (10%) or included in regional blends (20%). Programs like this not only create better livelihood opportunities for small farmers in Huila but also create incentives for improving quality.

Nariño

Nariño sits in the southernmost part of Colombia, bordering Ecuador at the high peaks of the Andes. Its proximity to the equator lets the department grow coffee at very high altitudes, with many farms on slopes above 2,000 meters above sea level.

The Nariño coffee region has multiple favorable factors: 1,666 hours of sunshine per year, 1,866 millimeters (74 inches) of rainfall per year with a reliable rainfall pattern, and soil with a high percentage of organic matter. Together these make it possible to grow coffee at high altitudes and below-average temperatures.

If the heat that accumulates at the bottom of the canyon during the day did not rise at night to soften the cold in the high mountain areas, growing coffee here would be almost impossible. In fact, it is exactly what makes some very special coffee possible.

Santander

A great deal of Typica and shade-grown coffee is cultivated here, most of it Rainforest Alliance certified. The department has a drier microclimate and lower growing altitudes.

Sierra Nevada

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a mountain range isolated from the Andes, with peaks exceeding 5,000 meters. In Colombia's northern coastal region, many coffee farmers in this department belong to the Arhuaco or Kogui indigenous tribes. Most of the coffee here is grown organically, whether certified or passively.

Tolima

Southern Tolima has been a hotbed of FARC guerrilla activity for many years and a strategic area in Colombia's ongoing internal conflict. Much of the department is difficult to reach, and the producers who grow coffee there tend to be very small in scale.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If Colombia's northern and central profiles, with their deep aroma, nutty sweetness, and chocolate, are what you enjoy most, FrontStreet Coffee's Indonesian Mandheling lineup delivers that same heavy, low-acid character. FrontStreet PWN Golden Mandheling, wet-hulled and dark roasted, opens with herbal and dark chocolate aromas, a faint earthy note, and a rich, layered body for drinkers who like bold coffee without much acidity. For a wilder, more traditional expression of the same style, FrontStreet Lintong Mandheling is wet-hulled and medium-dark roasted, showing dark chocolate and caramel with a clove-like, woody spice, a firm bitterness, and a long, full sweetness. Both echo the deep end of the Colombian spectrum.