Countries of Coffee Origin: Nicaragua and Colombia

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COLOMBIA

I interviewed Carlos Ignacio Velasco, Specialty Coffee Manager for the Federacion Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia.


What are the biggest challenges facing Colombian coffee?

This year, it’s due to weather problems. Last year we had an increase in production, so we tries to maintain an increase in production, keeping in mind to transfer the highest possible price to Colombian coffee growers, because this organization is larger NGO in the world.

What were the weather issues that you were facing?

We had too much rain at the end of 2008, which had an impact on the crop of 2009. Weather’s recovering, but from the end of last year to the first couple of months of this year, we had the El Nino phenomenon, which is too high temperatures in the Caribbean ocean, which makes hot weather happen in Colombia, which has an effect on the amount of production on some pest issues, the types of issues affecting the coffee.

What distinguishes Colombian coffee from other coffees in the region?

Colombian coffee, we consider the flavor of Colombian “milds,” where you have Colombia, Kenya and Tanzania. From the consumer point of view and the roaster point of view, you have coffee that is consistently good quality. Good quality is defined as mild coffee with a medium to high acidity, good body. It’s a reliable origin. If you go throughout the country, you will find differences in cup profile, in different regions, but no other country can offer fresh coffee year-round. It’s a huge advantage for us. If you add to the fact that it’s a good quality coffee that comes in a good amount, and also it’s also available all year, it’s an origin that becomes very useful for consumers and roasters worldwide.

How many different growing regions do you have in Colombia?

It depends how you define it. We have 84 micro-climactic regions.

How has Colombian coffee changed over the last five years?

Coffee’s an agricultural product, so you have variations year to year. We try to keep quality as best as we can, given the fact that it’s an agricultural product. You cannot fight against nature. You do your best to keep the health of the trees and have the varieties. In the case of Colombia, everything’s Arabica. All you can do is to maintain the quality throughout the change, so we have a very strict protocol to maintain quality at the farm level. That’s what we can do, but we have to deal with the fact that we’re dealing with an agricultural product that changes over time.

What about the coffee industry itself? Has that changed much in the past five years?

Yes. We have seen consolidation, but on the other hand, you have the specialty coffee movement…

…Specifically in Colombia.

We have seen changes. We introduced Juan Valdez coffee shops almost eight years ago. Colombia used to drink coffee that was leftover from export. Coffee in Colombia was not the best quality most of the time. We wanted Colombians to experience the coffees we were producing, so the organization launched the Juan Valdez coffee shops. Now we have 100 shops in Colombia, also in the U.S. and other parts of the world. That increases awareness for the Colombian consumer for high quality coffee. You can say the industry is moving every day more toward specialty coffee business, more than mainstream business.

Where do you see the Colombian coffee industry five years from now?

For the consumer in Colombia?

And also how Colombian coffee influences the world.

Well, I see Colombia growing in the specialty coffee business. I see Colombia growing in exportable volume. We have been pretty stable production wise, so we need to increase production, because consumption worldwide is increasingly steadily, year after year. We want to increase production in order to cope with increased consumption. I see Colombia keeping its share in the market and increasing its share in the specialty coffee market. Domestically, we will increase consumption. In Colombia, we consume about 10% of what we produce. Brazil, on the other hand, consumes about one-third of what they produce. Our goal is to increase awareness in Colombia and increase consumption.

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Joshua Lurie

Joshua Lurie founded FoodGPS in 2005. Read about him here.

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