WHY IS COLOMBIAN COFFEE THE BEST IN THE WORLD
¿Por qué es el café colombiano la mejor?
Three principal factors which determine the quality of coffee
1. Geography and climate
2. The growing and harvesting process
3. The type of coffee
- Colombia’s 100% arabica status
Colombia, with its perfect terrain and
climate, is one of the only countries that produces pure arabica
beans
Arabica is a superior bean, sweeter and lighter taste for a richer cup of coffee.
Tres factores principales que determinan la calidad del café
1. Geografía y clima
2. El proceso de cultivo y cosecha
3. El tipo de café
- Estado 100% de Arábica en Colombia
Colombia, con su terreno perfecto y
clima, es uno de los únicos países que produce arábica pura
frijoles
Arabica es un grano superior, más dulce y ligero para una taza de café más rica.
Coffee production in Colombia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coffee Cultural
Landscape of Colombia
Coffee
production in Colombia has
a reputation as producing mild, well-balanced coffee beans. Colombia's
average annual coffee production of 11.5 million bags is the second
total highest in the world, after Brazil, though highest in terms of
the arabica bean. The
beans are exported to United States, Germany, France, Japan, and
Italy. Most
coffee is grown in the Colombian
coffee growing axis region.
In 2007, the European Union granted
Colombian coffee a protected
designation of origin status. In
2011, UNESCO declared the "Coffee Cultural Landscape" of Colombia, a
World Heritage site.
The coffee plant had
spread to Colombia by
1790. The
oldest written testimony of the presence of coffee in Colombia is
attributed to a Jesuit priest, José Gumilla. In
his book The Orinoco Illustrated (1730), he registered the presence of coffee in the mission of
Saint Teresa of Tabajé, near where the Meta river empties into the
Orinoco. Further testimony comes from the archbishop-viceroy
Caballero y Gongora (1787) who registered the presence of the crop
in the north east of the country near Giron (Santander) and Muzo
(Boyaca) in a report that he provided to the Spanish authorities.
Contents
Early cultivation
The first coffee crops
were planted in the eastern part of the country. In 1808 the first
commercial production was registered with 100 green coffee bags
(60 kg each) that were exported from the port of Cucuta, near the
border with Venezuela. A
priest named Francisco Romero is attributed to have been very
influential in the propagation of the crop in the northeast region
of the country. After hearing the confession of the parishioners of
the town of Salazar de la Palmas, he required as penance the
cultivation of coffee. Coffee became established in the departments
of Santander and North
Santander, Cundinamarca, Antioquia, and the historic region of Caldas.
Exportation
Despite these early developments, the consolidation of coffee as
a Colombian export did not come about until the second half of the
19th century. The great expansion that the world economy underwent
at that time allowed Colombian landowners to find attractive
opportunities in international markets. Little by little, the United
States became the most important consumer of coffee in the world,
while (Germany) and France became the most important markets in
Europe.
Setbacks
The then large Colombian landowners had
already tried to exploit the new opportunities that the expansion of
the international markets offered. Between 1850 and 1857 the country
experienced a significant increase in tobacco and quinine exports,
and thereafter leather and live cattle. These early efforts in the
export of agricultural commodities turned out too fragile; they in
fact were only reactionary attempts to find the greatest
profitability from the high international prices of the time, rather
than attempts to create a solid and diversified export platform. The
production of these sectors went into a period of decline when the
respective bonanza of their international prices terminated, hence a
true industrial consolidation was prevented.
With the fall of international prices,
that registered the transition from the 19th to the 20th century,
the profitability of the large estates plummeted. As if this was not
enough, the Thousand
Days War, which took place during
the first years of the new century, also negatively influenced the
important landowners, making it impossible for them to maintain
their plantations in good conditions; this circumstance summed to
the fact that these producers had incurred in large amounts of
foreign debt in order to further develop their plantations, which
finally ruined them. The coffee estates of Santander and North
Santander entered into crisis and the estates of Cundinamarca and
Antioquia stalled.
Consequences
A coffee plantation in Quimbaya,
Quindío.
The crisis that affected the large
estates brought with it one of the most significant changes of the
Colombian coffee industry. Since 1875, the number of small coffee
producers had begun to grow in Santander as well as in some regions
of Antioquia and
in the region referred to as Viejo or Old Caldas. In the first
decades of the 20th century a new model to develop coffee exports
based on the rural economy had already been consolidated, supported
by internal migration and the colonization of new territories in the
center and western regions of the country, principally in the
departments of Antioquia, Caldas, Valle,
and in the northern part of Tolima.
Both the expansion of this new coffee model and the crisis that
affected the large estates allowed the western regions of Colombia
to take the lead in the development of the coffee industry in the
country.
This transformation was very favorable for the owners of the
small coffee estates that were entering the coffee market. The
cultivation of coffee was a very attractive option for local
farmers, as it offered the possibility of making permanent and
intensive use of the land. Under this productive model of the
traditional agriculture, based on the slash and burn method, the
land remained unproductive for long periods of time. In contrast,
coffee offered the possibility of having an intense agriculture,
without major technical requirements and without sacrificing the
cultivation of subsistence crops, thus generating the conditions for
the expansion of a new coffee culture, dominated by small farms.
From 1905 to 1907 to the
present
Although this new breed of coffee made of country farmers
demonstrated a significant capacity to grow at the margin of current
international prices, Colombia did not have a relatively important
dynamism in the global market of this product. During the period
between 1905 and 1935 the coffee industry in Colombia grew
dynamically thanks to the vision and long term politics derived from
the creation of the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia
(National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia) in 1927.
The union of local farmers and small producers around the
Federation permitted them to confront logistical and commercial
difficulties that would not have been possible individually. With
time and through the research made at Cenicafé, founded in 1938, and
the Federation's agricultural Extension Service, improved
cultivation systems. More efficient spatial patterns were developed
that permitted the differentiation of the product and supported its
quality. Currently the Land of Coffee in Colombia includes all of
the mountain ranges and other mountainous regions of the country,
and generates income for over 500,000 coffee farming families.
Climate change
While a 2011 New York
Times article claimed that regional climate change associated
with global
warming had caused Colombian coffee production to decline from 12
million 132-pound bags, the standard measure, to 9 million bags
between 2006 - 2010, with average temperatures rising 1 degree
Celsius between 1980 and 2010, and average precipitation increasing
25 percent in the preceding years, disrupting the specific climatic
requirements of the Coffea arabica bean,
yields of Colombia coffee increased significantly from 2011 to 2018
to 14.2 million bags.
Colombian coffee growing axis
Main article: Colombian
coffee growing axis
The coffee
growing axis (Spanish: Eje Cafetero), also known as the coffee triangle (Spanish: Triángulo
del Café)
is a part of the Colombian Paisa
region.
There are three departments in the area: Caldas, Quindío and Risaralda. These departments are among the smallest departments in
Colombia with a total combined area of 13873 km² (5356 mi²), about
1.2% of the Colombian territory. The combined population is
2,291,195 (2005 census). In
2011 UNESCO declared the region a World Heritage site.
National Federation of Coffee
Growers of Colombia[edit]
Main article: National
Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia
The National Federation
of Coffee Growers of Colombia is a non-profit business association,
popularly known for its "Juan
Valdez" marketing campaign. The federation was founded in 1927 as a
business cooperative that promotes the production and exportation of
Colombian coffee. It currently represents more than 500,000
producers, most of whom are small family owned farms. The federation
supports research and development in the production of coffee
through grants to local universities and through federation
sponsored research institutes. The federation also monitors
production to ensure export quality standards are met. The
Federation was founded with three objectives: 1) to protect the
industry, 2) to study its problems, and 3) to further its interests.[17] The
Juan Valdez branding concept was developed in 1981 to distinguish
100% Colombian coffee from coffee blended with beans from other
countries. The trademark made its first TV appearance in 1983
featuring a country farmer carrying coffee on his mule.
Juan Valdez
Main article: Juan
Valdez
Juan Valdez is a
fictional character who has appeared in adverts for the National
Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia since
1958, representing a Colombian coffee farmer. The adverts were
designed by the Doyle
Dane Bernbach ad agency, with the goal of distinguishing 100%-Colombian
coffee from coffee blended with beans from other countries. He
typically appears alongside his mule Conchita, carrying
sacks of harvested coffee beans. He has become an icon for Colombia
as well as coffee in general, and Juan Valdez's iconic appearance is
frequently mimicked or parodied in television and other media.
National Coffee Park
Main article: National
Coffee Park
A theme park based on Colombian coffee
production was built in the Quindío
area in 1995 by the National
Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia and
the Departmental Committee of Coffee Growers of Quindío. In 2009 the
park received its 5 millionth visitor
