The legend

There are many legends that speculate about the origin of the coffee tree, but the most accepted by all researchers is that it comes from the tropical strip of the African continent, in the south of Abyssinia, the city of Caffa, today Ethiopia. There are legends that attribute a divine origin to the coffee tree, which tells that the Ethiopian sage Bata Maryan, dedicated to prayer and penance, planted a stick in the ground, which served as a walking stick during his pilgrimages, which prospered later. and he covered himself with red berries that were the first coffee beans that, once consumed, gave him the strength to endure his trials and overcome sleep on his nocturnal walk. Another legend says that in the 9th century a shepherd named Kaldi from Kaffa noticed that when his goats were nibbling on the bright red berries of a certain bush, they became very lively, Kaldi then chewed on the fruit himself. His exhilaration prompted him to bring the berries to the nearest place of worship in the village. After a brief explanation, the head monk deemed the berries to be the “Devil’s work”, and abruptly threw the berries into a nearby fire. Soon thereafter, a sensual and powerful aroma filled the room that could not be overlooked. The head monk, who had thrown them in the fire in the first place, ordered the embers be pulled from the fire and for hot water to be poured over them to preserve the smell. Upon drinking the mixture, they experienced the peaceful, warming, and calming sensation it gave them. The after-effects were just as powerful, as they were able to stay alert and discuss important matters for longer periods of time. The monk then shared his discovery with the other monks at the monastery, and knowledge of the energizing berries began to spread.

History of coffee in Colombia

There are indications from the beginning of the 14th century of the passage of coffee to Arabia through Yemen, which is separated from Abyssinia by the narrow strip of the Red Sea, which facilitated trade and transit from one country to another by caravans, not to say that it is suspected that it was the Arabs, who in the history of the world have always been great merchants, who took the product and dedicated themselves to spreading the influence of its benefits in its consumption, with such enthusiasm and such conviction that from the beginning it has been become an extraordinary currency generator.

The first coffee crops grew in the eastern part of the country. The first commercial production took place in 1835 and records show that the first 2,560 bags were exported from Cúcuta customs, on the border with Venezuela. According to testimonies of the time, Francisco Romero, a priest who imposed the penance of planting coffee on the parishioners of the city of Salazar de las Palmas during the confession, was a great boost in the spread of cereal culture in this rural area. . These seeds would have allowed the presence of coffee in the departments of Santander and Norte de Santander, in the northeast of the country, with its consequent expansion, from 1850, towards the center and west through Cundinamarca, Antioquia and the region of old Caldas.

export products

Despite these early developments, the consolidation of coffee as an export product in Colombia did not begin until the second half of the 19th century. The great expansion of the world economy at this time made Colombian landowners find attractive opportunities in the international market. Little by little, the United States became the largest coffee consumer in the world, while Germany and France became the most interesting markets in Europe.

The large Colombian landowners had already tried to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the expansion of the international economy. Between 1850 and 1857 there was an export boom in the country for tobacco and cinchona, and later for leather and live cattle. These first efforts to export Colombian agricultural products turned out to be extremely fragile, since they responded to a search for profitability derived from high international prices, rather than the intention of creating a solid and diversified base of sales abroad. When the price drop ended, the production of the respective sector entered a phase of decline, which put an end to any attempt at business consolidation.

Coffee also experienced a speculative expansion of this cup, generated by the situation of good international prices between the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 20th century. During this period, annual coffee production increased from around 60,000 60-kilo bags (the international unit of measurement for coffee marketing is a 60-kilo bag of green coffee) to around 600,000. mainly in the large farms of the departments of Santander . and Cundinamarca, whose owners accessed the international banking market to finance their projects. That is why it is not surprising that at the end of the 19th century these two regions represented more than 80% of the national production.

The crisis

With the fall in international prices, which occurred in the transition from the 19th to the 20th century, the profitability of the large farms collapsed. As if that were not enough, the Thousand Days War, which occurred in the early years of the new century, dealt another heavy blow to the large landowners, since it prevented them from keeping the plantations in good condition; This circumstance, added to the fact that these producers had borrowed abroad to develop their crops, ruined them. The coffee plantations of Santander and Norte de Santander entered into crisis, and those of Cundinamarca and Antioquia stagnated.

The crisis of the large farms has caused one of the most significant changes in the Colombian coffee culture. Since 1875, the number of small coffee growers had begun to increase in Santander, in parts of Antioquia, and in the region called Viejo Caldas. Already in the first decades of the 20th century, an innovative model of development of coffee exports based on the peasant economy had been consolidated, driven by internal migrations and the colonization of New Lands in the center and west of the country, mainly in the departments from Antioch. ., Caldas, Valle and north of Tolima.The expansion of this new coffee culture, added to the crisis of the large farms, made western Colombia take the lead in the country’s coffee development at the beginning of the 20th century.

This transformation was very favorable for the owners of small plots to enter the sector. The cultivation of coffee was a very attractive option for peasants, to the extent that it offered the possibility of permanent and intensive exploitation of the land. Under the productive scheme of traditional agriculture, based on the slash-and-burn method, the land remained unproductive for a long period. On the other hand, coffee offered the possibility of having an intensive agriculture, without major technical requirements and without sacrificing the cultivation of subsistence products, generating the conditions for the growth of a new coffee farming, dominated by small owners.

National Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers

Although the new coffee farmers demonstrated a great capacity for growth regardless of the international price situation, Colombia did not have great relative dynamism in the world market in this period. As can be seen in the following graph, between 1905 and 1935, the coffee industry in Colombia experienced dynamic growth, thanks to the long-term political vision derived from the creation of the National Federation of Coffee Growers (FNC) in  1927  .

In 1930, Colombia established itself as the second largest coffee producer in the world.

The union of peasants and small producers around the Federation has allowed them to face common logistical and commercial challenges that individually they would not have been able to overcome. Over time, and thanks to the research carried out by Cenicafé, founded in 1938, and by the Agricultural Extension Service, cultivation and traceability systems have been developed that have made it possible to differentiate the product and guarantee its quality. Currently, the land of coffee in Colombia includes all the mountains and mountainous areas of the country, generating income for more than 563,000 families that produce the grain.