Coffee was first brought to Colombia in the early 1700’s by Jesuit priests who arrived with Spanish settlers. The first crops were harvested in the Northeast part of the country, but coffee was quickly adopted across the nation by small, family farms as a local cash crop.

The first commercial export of coffee didn’t occur until the first decade of the 1800’s. That first shipment of a humble 100 bags of green coffee (around 60kg each) was the first of what would become a major industry. As coffee consumption grew rapidly in The United States, Germany, and France in the mid-1800’s, so did Colombia’s coffee production.

The growing industry hit a brief decline in the late 1800’s as a civil war broke out in the country, called The Thousand Days War. The fighting, along with a lull in international coffee prices, forced many plantation owners to split up farmland among workers, giving locals ownership and autonomy over their own farms.

In the early 1900’s, the now peaceful Colombia created a logistics system that enabled rural, small-estate farmers to export their coffee more efficiently. This spurred a new age of growth and gave those newer farmers a way to keep producing.

In 1927, the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia was created to protect the interests of coffee growers. This organization quickly came to represent a large portion of Colombian coffee farmers.

Over the next few years, Colombia thrived as a coffee producer and became the world’s 3rd largest exporter, behind only Brazil and Vietnam.

In the 50’s the FNC launched an ad campaign that would create a national icon and generate a thirst for Colombian coffee around the globe. The man who made it happen was Juan Valdez, a fictional character who would appear on a variety of ads to communicate the quality of Colombian coffee.

Juan Valdez and his loyal donkey, Conchita, have been beloved ever since. Many have claimed that this character has become “the Uncle Sam of Colombia”, though we’re honestly not sure if that’s a correct assessment.