Colombia is the third-largest coffee producer in the world and the largest producer of arabica. More than 500,000 families depend on it, most of them on small farms.
In 2011 UNESCO inscribed the Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia. It covers parts of Caldas, Risaralda, Quindío and nearby departments and takes in eighteen urban settlements.
In 1958 the coffee growers' federation hired the agency Doyle Dane Bernbach to set 100% Colombian coffee apart from blends. The result was Juan Valdez, a fictional grower with a mule named Conchita.
At home, most Colombians drink tinto. It is a small, strong black coffee, often made from beans not good enough for export.
Tinto
How it's made. Brewed daily at home in a jug with a cloth filter, often from lower-grade 'second class' beans kept back from export.1
How it's served. Small, strong and bitter, often with sugar or milk. It is sold cheaply by street vendors.
What time is taking away
Yipao jeep parade
Willys jeeps arrived in Colombia in 1946 and coffee farmers adopted them as 'mulitas mecánicas' (mechanical mules) for hauling coffee on mountain roads. Since 1988, Quindío has held the Yipao, a parade of jeeps loaded as high as possible with coffee, furniture and farm goods. In 2006 a caravan of over 370 Willys in Calarcá set a Guinness record.5
Coffee as penance
A priest named Francisco Romero is said to have told parishioners in Salazar de las Palmas to plant coffee as penance after confession, helping spread the crop in the north-east.2
What the record says
- The Jesuit José Gumilla recorded coffee at a mission on the Orinoco in his 1730 book 'The Orinoco Illustrated'.2
- The National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia was founded in 1927. It represents over 500,000 producers, mostly small family farms.2
- Colombia produces about 11.5 million bags a year on average, third in the world after Brazil and Vietnam.2
- UNESCO inscribed the Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia in 2011. It covers 141,120 hectares in six zones.3
- Juan Valdez was created in 1958 by the agency Doyle Dane Bernbach to promote 100% Colombian coffee over blends.4
- Three actors have played Juan Valdez: José F. Duval (1959–1969), Carlos Sánchez (1969–2006) and Carlos Castañeda Ceballos (2006–2024).4
- Colombia exports most of its high-quality coffee, so the everyday tinto is often made from lower-grade beans.1
- The first Willys jeeps came to Colombia in 1946 for military use, and coffee farmers soon used them to reach places once served only by pack animals.5
The UNESCO World Heritage page returned 403, so landscape facts come from Wikipedia's summary of the inscription. Some Spanish-language sources give 1959 as Juan Valdez's creation year. The Francisco Romero penance story is reported as an attribution, not established fact. No source we opened gave altitude, harvest or process details, so those fields are left empty.
- Colombia Is Finally Starting to Drink Its Own Coffee · VICE, 2017 in the bibliography
- Coffee production in Colombia · Wikipedia in the bibliography
- Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia · Wikipedia in the bibliography
- Juan Valdez · Wikipedia in the bibliography
- Yipao · Wikipedia in the bibliography
