What Are the Defining Characteristics of Colombian Coffee?

Colombia is the world's second-largest Arabica producer after Brazil, and its coffee is known for balanced acidity, sweetness and chocolate notes. Washed beans from Huila deliver rich dark chocolate and soft fruit acidity, while Sakura beans from Finca El Paraiso in Cauca show full fruit sweetness and fermented notes from a double anaerobic washed process.

Coffee reached Colombia in the early 18th century with Spanish Jesuit missionaries, and a missionary named Jose Gumilla recorded seeing it along the Orinoco River. Smallholder farming expanded after the Thousand Days' War, and the founding of the FNC later organized coffee production and exports. Today the country remains a coffee powerhouse despite its modest land area.

Although Colombia is not a large country geographically, it is a global coffee powerhouse, second only to Brazil in Arabica coffee production. From Jesuit missionaries bringing coffee seeds to this land in the 18th century, to the rise of smallholder farming after the Thousand Days' War, to the founding of the FNC and the advancement of the specialty coffee wave, Colombian coffee has traveled a unique path of development. In Front Street Coffee's daily ration bean series, the washed beans from the Huila region of Colombia are known for their rich dark chocolate flavor and soft fruit acidity; while the Sakura beans from Finca El Paraiso in the Cauca region present full fruit sweetness and fermented notes thanks to the double anaerobic washed processing method. This article will take you through the historical context, industry landscape, and specific brewing suggestions to fully understand the charm of Colombian coffee.

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Coffee has long been integrated into people's daily diet. When everyone picks up that morning cup that combines acidity, sweetness, and bitterness, they gradually notice that coffees from different origins have distinct flavor characteristics. Brazilian coffee is known for being soft and smooth, Ethiopian coffee has bright acidity, and Indonesian coffee is low in acidity and full-bodied. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) has encountered many veteran coffee enthusiasts who, compared to the currently popular fruit bomb-style flavors, prefer classic Colombian coffee with dark chocolate notes.

History of Colombian Coffee

Although Colombia's land area is not vast, it is truly a major coffee-producing country, with Arabica coffee bean production second only to its neighbor Brazil. However, like many coffee-producing countries in the Americas, before the arrival of European colonists, this cash crop native to Ethiopia had no trace on Colombian soil.

According to records, coffee cultivation in Colombia can be traced back to the early 18th century, when coffee seeds or seedlings arrived on this land along with the fleet of Spanish Jesuit missionaries. A Spanish missionary named José Gumilla recorded in his writings the Orinoco River, which flows through Venezuela and Colombia, and explicitly mentioned that he personally saw coffee plantations along the riverbank in 1730. This indirectly confirms that coffee cultivation in Colombia had already begun before 1730.

With the widespread promotion of coffee in Colombia, by the end of the 19th century, coffee had become the country's main foreign exchange export commodity. However, the four-year "Thousand Days' War" that broke out at the end of the 19th century dealt a heavy blow to Colombia, causing a sharp population decline, abandoned land, and economic stagnation.

Many large coffee plantations could no longer sustain themselves and even became unmanaged wasteland for a time. To save the coffee industry, the Colombian government consolidated these wastelands and divided them into small planting units, selling them to landless farmers at extremely low prices. Farmers could plant coffee and other crops mixed together on these lands.

Colombian National Coffee Growers Federation

Colombia's industry structure dominated by small coffee farms is regarded as a new and flexible industrial model. Under the influence of international coffee prices, Colombian coffee has shown tremendous growth potential. However, at that time, Colombian coffee did not occupy an important position in the global market.

To turn this situation around, Colombian coffee growers formed an organization called the "Coffee Producers Institution" in 1904 to manage the domestic market. By 1920, a coffee grower took the lead in promoting the establishment of the Colombian Coffee Federation to protect the interests of numerous small coffee farms. This organization subsequently grew continuously and in 1927 formally established a more authoritative and larger-scale organization—the FNC.

The FNC was founded to protect the interests of coffee growers. In the years that followed, with the assistance of the FNC, Colombia as a coffee-producing country leaped to become the world's third-largest coffee exporter.

As one of the classic coffee-producing countries, Colombia not only occupies a unique area on Front Street Coffee's (FrontStreet Coffee) bean list marked with over fifty coffee beans, but has also been selected for Front Street Coffee's (FrontStreet Coffee) daily ration bean series.

Front Street Coffee's (FrontStreet Coffee) daily ration bean series covers seven classic coffee-producing regions. Although they do not come from famous coffee estates, they allow coffee beginners to taste the main flavors of major producing regions at an affordable price, and thereby understand which producing region they prefer.

After cupping and comparing multiple coffee beans of different varieties, processing methods, and producing regions, Front Street discovered that washed coffee beans can better present the main flavor of a producing region, while sun-dried coffee beans have stronger aroma and sweetness on top of the washed baseline.

Therefore, Front Street Coffee's (FrontStreet Coffee) daily ration bean series basically all adopt the washed processing method in order to showcase the most basic flavors of the producing region. One of Front Street Coffee's (FrontStreet Coffee) Colombian daily ration beans comes from the renowned Huila region. The washed processing fully reveals its original terroir, presenting a rich dark chocolate flavor with soft fruit acidity.

In addition to the more traditional chocolate-flavored Colombian coffee, Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) is very attuned to the currently popular fourth wave of specialty coffee. More and more coffee enthusiasts are not only paying attention to fruit bomb-flavored coffee beans, but are also beginning to gain a deeper understanding of coffee bean varieties and post-processing methods for green coffee beans.

Among them, Colombian Finca El Paraiso coffee beans have attracted much attention because they were used by Luckin Coffee to launch an SOE series. Finca El Paraiso, as one of the well-known coffee estates in Colombia, has long been available on Front Street Coffee's (FrontStreet Coffee) bean shelves.

Finca El Paraiso is located in the Cauca region, which is a coffee-producing region with Colombian origin certification, with an average altitude exceeding 1,700 meters and a maximum of 2,100 meters. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) sources coffee beans from many places and has a rich variety. The reason Front Street values this producing region is that its temperature difference between day and night is much greater than other producing regions, so the coffee cherries take longer to grow. After absorbing more soil nutrients, this creates Cauca coffee's superior sweet and sour characteristics.

The owner of Finca El Paraiso, Diego Samuel, studied coffee-related knowledge during university. In 2008, he took over this estate, which is brushed by sea breezes, and carefully managed this unique piece of land. In 2015, Finca El Paraiso won first place in a local coffee cupping competition, which further inspired the estate owner's passion for coffee cultivation and technological innovation.

With firm conviction, Diego led Finca El Paraiso to win awards repeatedly, etching the name of Finca El Paraiso onto one competition podium after another, and thus Finca El Paraiso became widely renowned. On the path of improving and stabilizing coffee bean quality, Diego continuously pursued improvements and innovations. Today, Finca El Paraiso cultivates coffee varieties such as Bourbon, Laurina, Geisha, and Castillo, and is still planning to try more different varieties.

One coffee bean from Finca El Paraiso that Front Street sourced is called Sakura, a Castillo variety, processed with the double anaerobic washed method. The whole coffee cherries first undergo one round of anaerobic fermentation, then the skin and pulp are removed, and with the sticky pectin layer still on, they undergo a second round of anaerobic fermentation. After fermentation is complete, they are washed, and after the pectin layer is thoroughly cleaned off, they are then sun-dried.

Front Street Colombian Finca El Paraiso Sakura Coffee Beans

Region: Cauca, Colombia

Estate: Finca El Paraiso

Altitude: 2,050 meters

Variety: Castillo

Processing method: Double anaerobic washed processing

After cupping this Colombian Sakura coffee bean, Front Street found that with this processing method, the coffee's flavor is fuller, with rich fruit sweetness and fermented notes, and a heavier mouthfeel. In order to highlight this coffee bean's unique sweetness and give it a heavier mouthfeel, Front Street Coffee's (FrontStreet Coffee) roaster adopted a medium roast level when creating the roasting curve.

When brewing this coffee bean, Front Street recommends the following parameters:

Dripper: Hario V60

Water temperature: 90°C

Coffee dose: 15 grams

Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15

Grind size: 80% passing through Chinese standard No. 20 sieve

Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) ships freshly roasted coffee beans within 5 days of roasting. After roasting is complete, the coffee beans contain abundant carbon dioxide gas, which during brewing inhibits hot water from entering the internal structure and extracting flavor compounds. Therefore, Front Street recommends blooming during brewing to promote gas release. The bloom time is generally controlled at around 30 seconds, with the specific situation depending on the state of the bloom "hamburger." If the "hamburger" does not noticeably rise or collapses, the bloom time can be appropriately shortened; vice versa.

First pour 30 grams of hot water to bloom for 30 seconds, then pour from the center point with a fine stream of water and slowly circle to 125 grams. When the water level in the dripper drops to the point where the coffee bed is about to be exposed, continue circling and pouring to 225 grams. The extraction time is about 2 minutes.

The Sakura coffee produced by Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) using the above extraction recommendations has aromas of basil and rosemary on the palate, with a hint of strawberry jam in the aftertaste.

Some friends are curious why Front Street's coffee bean is called Sakura but doesn't have a sakura flavor. This is because when the owner of Finca El Paraiso named this coffee bean, he smelled a faint aroma that reminded him of sakura. However, the coffee ultimately reaches consumers in the form of roasted beans. After Front Street Coffee's (FrontStreet Coffee) careful roasting, the aroma of the coffee beans after roasting presents a different expression, hence the special spice aromas like basil and rosemary.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.