Colombian gourmet coffee – consistent quality, with a few pleasant surprises.

Colombian gourmet coffee is one of the best known names in the coffee world. In part because of the ubiquitous Juan Valdez and his burro.

Juan Valdez is the creation of the Colombian Coffee Federation, a national organization which has been promoting Colombia’s coffee for many decades. Set up in 1927, the Colombian Coffee Federation acts as buyer, marketer, technical adviser and banker to Colombia's 560,000 coffee farmers.

The outcome of almost a century of organization and marketing? In addition to making Colombian coffee a household name in North America, it has also resulted in the growing and processing of a consistently fine range of coffee beans.

For your first Colombian gourmet coffee, try Supremo

Colombian Supremo is an excellent coffee, with all the attributes you would expect and hope for.

Supremo is the most popular "single origin" gourmet coffee in the world. In the words of coffee expert Kenneth Davids, “This coffee is medium strength and sweet tasting with a superlative flavor and delightful aroma. The name Supremo comes from the size of the bean. Supremo beans are slightly larger than the decreasingly small Excelso, Extra, and Pasilla beans.”

The nice thing about Supremo is that you can find it almost anywhere, and it is very reasonably priced when compared with other top-quality beans.

However, Supremo is not the only Colombian gourmet coffee worth trying...

It’s tempting to think of Colombian gourmet coffee as being good, but not exceptional.

This is a little unfair, and may prevent the true coffee enthusiast from discovering some real gems from Colombia, like The Roasterie's Pitalito Estate, Terroir's La Esperanza, tiny Coffee Emergency's Inza Cauca and the Don Francisco Supremo.

You may find these and other specialties hard to find. But while you are searching, you can rest easy in the knowledge that your Supremo beans will always give you a very fine and enjoyable cup of coffee. 

More on choosing the best gourmet specialty coffee...

About the author: Nick Usborne, aka Coffee Detective, is a writer and long-time coffee enthusiast. Read more…