How coffee arrived in Colombia
Coffee is the second most consumed beverage in the world, after water.
Colombian coffee offers a rich and wide diversity of flavors due Colombia’s multiple geographical, climatic regions and process factors that come into play throughout the coffee production chain, from crop to cup.
It all began centuries ago in Africa, Ethiopia, to be exact, where coffee was initially consumed in infusions or by chewing the leaves of the coffee plant, but it was the Arabians, who were responsible for its expansion, first throughout the Arab world arriving in Turkey in 1544. In the 17th century, coffee was introduced to Europe through the port of Venice, Italy and expanded across the continent to finally reach South America by the 18th century.
Those responsible for this expansion across new continents were the Dutch who didn’t want to have to depend on the Arabians. This is how, at the beginning of the 18th century, the Netherlands came to be the production leaders of the world.
One of the theories about how coffee arrived in South America is that it was the Dutchmen who introduced it through what is known today as Suriname and then the French at the beginning of the 18th century, exported it to Colombia and Brazil. By the 19th century, it had become of great importance in farming which was also influenced by the fact that by the middle of 19th century, a disease known as coffee rust attacked the crops of Ceylon, Sri Lanka today, who at that time were the main coffee producers.
HOW TO RECOGNIZE COLOMBIAN COFFEE
IDEAL CONDITIONS
FOR COFFEE CULTIVATION:
Between 1200 and 1800 MASL
Warm temperatures
between 17 to 23 Celsius
Average precipitation
close to 2000 millimetres/year
HOW TO RECOGNIZE COLOMBIAN COFFEE
