Antioquia

Antioquia, the mountainous department around Medellín, is Colombia’s second-biggest coffee producer, and the birthplace of its coffee institutions: the National Federation of Coffee Growers was founded in Medellín in 1927. Its coffee is grown by about 74,600 families, nearly all of them smallholders, across 94 coffee municipalities. Here’s what the cup is like, when it’s picked and how much there is.

The short version

• Second in Colombia: about 2.2 million bags in a normal year.
• Small farms: 97.1% of growers have under 5 hectares.
• Sweet, fruity and herbal, with medium malic acidity.
• Where the FNC began, in Medellín in 1927.
• No denomination of origin yet.

What does Antioquia coffee taste like?

The FNC’s official regional profile describes a sweet, cane-sugar aroma, fruity and herbal flavours, medium, malic acidity and a medium, juicy body. Unlike Huila, Cauca or Tolima, Antioquia doesn’t have its own denomination of origin: Spanish Wikipedia lists it as still to be granted, and it’s not on the FNC’s list of regional denominations.

When is coffee harvested in Antioquia?

Twice a year, with the main crop at the end of the year:

Harvest	Source
Main crop at the end of the year; the traviesa or mitaca in February, March and April	Álvaro Jaramillo, director of Antioquia’s coffee committee, in El Colombiano
Main crop September–December; fly crop April–May	Sample Coffee Roasters

The first-half crop of 2025 was badly affected, Jaramillo said, “almost without beans to pick”. For the end-of-year harvest, the committee expected to need about 59,000 pickers, 36,000 local and 23,000 from elsewhere.

How much coffee does Antioquia grow?

Figure	Value	Source
Production	About 2.2 million bags in a normal year; 1.9–2 million expected for the end of 2025	Álvaro Jaramillo, in El Colombiano
Area, 2024	114,312 ha, second in Colombia	FNC coffee information system, via Agronegocios
Families	74,593, of whom 97.1% farm less than 5 ha	Antioquia’s coffee committee 2025 report, via ABC Economía
Value of the 2025 harvest	COP 3.6 trillion	Committee report, via ABC Economía
Coffee municipalities	94	El Colombiano
Rust-resistant varieties	90% of the coffee area	El Colombiano

The committee invested a record COP 46,930 million in 2025, ABC Economía reported, mostly in processing equipment for small farms and in rural roads.

What’s the history of coffee in Antioquia?

When	What happened	Source
From 1875	Small coffee farms multiply in Antioquia, as in Santander	Wikipedia
Early 1900s	After the Thousand Days War, the big estates of Antioquia and Cundinamarca stall, while settlers spread coffee into new land in Antioquia, Caldas, Valle and northern Tolima	Wikipedia
1927	The National Federation of Coffee Growers is founded in Medellín, at the second national coffee congress	Wikipedia (Spanish); Antioquia’s coffee committee

You may read that coffee was first introduced to Colombia in Antioquia, or that it has Colombia’s largest coffee area. Sample Coffee Roasters says both, but the FNC’s area figures put Huila first, and the oldest records of coffee point to the east and north-east of the country (see Colombia).

Antioquia and other Colombian origins

• Coffee in Colombia: the whole country, its harvests and its figures.
• Caldas: the coffee axis, and home of Cenicafé.
• Quindío: the heart of the coffee axis.
• Huila: Colombia’s biggest producer.