Coffee is grown in many countries across every continent of the world, and in South America several countries grow coffee, such as Ecuador, Peru and Colombia. Among them, Colombian coffee enjoys very high recognition in the global coffee market, and Colombia is the third-largest coffee-producing country after Brazil and Vietnam.

Colombia

Colombia is located in the northwest of South America and is a country with both land and sea, bordering the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the north. Colombia's terrain is roughly divided into a western mountainous region and an eastern plains region; the west is mainly the Andes mountain range, while the east is mainly the Orinoco plains and the Amazon plains.

Located in the tropics, the climate varies with the terrain: the eastern plains and the Pacific coast have a tropical rainforest climate, while the mountains at an altitude of 1000-2000 m have a subtropical climate, and the northwest has a tropical savanna climate.In the Andean region of Colombia, three Cordillera mountain ranges run north to south, and coffee is mainly grown in the highlands of these ranges, where the year-round temperature is about 18°C, and which have many volcanoes and forests and annual rainfall of 2000-3000 mm, providing an ideal environment for coffee growing.

Coffee-Producing Regions

Colombia is a relatively large country, so it has multiple coffee-growing regions, and because of the mountainous terrain, different microclimates and other growing conditions, the coffee produced in each region tastes very different.

Colombia's main coffee-producing regions include Cauca, Santander, Narino, Tolima and Huila. There are two harvest seasons a year: the main season runs from October to January, and the secondary season from April to July.

Santander region: located in northern Colombia, in the Andes, with a growing altitude of about 1400-1700 m. Santander is a very important province that is rarely mentioned, but it was in fact the first in Colombia to start growing coffee, and the Santander region now accounts for 5% of Colombia's total coffee production. However, many of the coffee varieties grown in this region are leaf-rust-resistant varieties, which also makes Santander a low leaf-rust prevalence area for Colombia and even the world.

Hacienda Casa Blanca

Hacienda Casa Blanca is located at 1500 m in the Santander region. It is a large estate that began growing coffee as early as 1860, though the plantings were all commodity varieties. But starting in 2006, the estate's current owner, Liliana Caballero Rojas, and her family began moving it in the specialty coffee direction, and in 2016 they won the Colombia Yara tournament championship.

Casablanca Estate covers 30 hectares, of which 10 hectares of natural virgin forest are preserved, and it has natural streams and waterfalls; the estate can use the fresh water from the streams to process coffee beans. Currently, coffee varieties such as Geisha, Castillo, Pink Bourbon and Wush Wush are planted on the estate.