Tolima

Tolima sits in the middle of Colombia, in the Andes, and it is the country’s third-largest coffee department. What sets it apart is the calendar: its trees flower twice a year, so it has two harvests and, its coffee committee says, fresh coffee all year round. Since 2017 it has had its own protected name, Café del Tolima, and its southern town of Planadas has produced winners of Colombia’s Cup of Excellence. Here’s what to know.

The short version

• Third in Colombia: 106,852 hectares in 2024, more than 66,000 coffee families.
• Two harvests a year, from two flowerings.
• Sweet and fruity, with medium-high acidity and body.
• A protected origin since 30 January 2017.
• Planadas: the biggest producer, and home of Cup of Excellence winners.

What does Tolima coffee taste like?

Sweet and fruity, the FNC says. The descriptions line up:

Description	Source
Sweet, fruity aroma and flavour; medium-high, citric acidity; medium-high, creamy body	FNC regional profile
Medium-high acidity and body, clean, smooth, balanced, with sweet flavours, citrus and fruit	FNC, the Café del Tolima denomination of origin
A clean cup, very balanced notes and a sweet aftertaste with fruity hints	Tolima’s coffee committee, in El Espectador

Why does Tolima have two harvests?

The FNC, which applied for Tolima’s protected name, gives three reasons for its coffee’s character:

• Rain spread through the year.
• A warm climate that lets the trees flower twice a year.
• Sandy soils that make more nutrients available to the plants.

So Tolima picks twice. Sample Coffee Roasters gives a main harvest from March to June and a second from October to December. Tolima’s coffee committee says this gives buyers a steady supply, unlike regions at the far south or north of the country, such as Cauca or Nariño, with one main harvest a year.

The soil is the one point where the sources differ:

Soil	Source
Sandy-textured soils with more available nutrients	FNC, Café del Tolima denomination of origin
Volcanic soils rich in minerals	Tolima’s coffee committee, in El Espectador

How much coffee does Tolima grow?

Figure	Value	Source
Area, 2024	106,852 ha, third in Colombia	FNC coffee information system, via Agronegocios
Area, 2026	About 105,000 ha	Tolima’s coffee committee, in El Espectador
Production	About 1.87 million bags a year	Tolima’s coffee committee
Families	More than 66,000	Tolima’s coffee committee
Municipalities	38	Tolima’s coffee committee
Yield	About 10 bags a hectare in 2007, 19 now	Gildardo Monroy, the committee’s director

The department’s government wants Tolima to overtake Antioquia as Colombia’s second-largest producer; the committee says the gap in area is a little over 3,000 hectares.

What is special about Planadas?

Planadas, in the south of the department, is Tolima’s largest coffee producer, the committee says, and two of its growers, Astrid Medina and Duberney Cifuentes, have won Colombia’s Cup of Excellence. A lot from Cifuentes sold for US$72 a pound at the third International Coffee Fair in El Líbano in 2025, and Tolima has auctioned lots scoring above 91 points. Sample Coffee Roasters notes that Tolima was once at the centre of the conflict between the government and the FARC, and has only recently opened up to more reliable exports.

Tolima and other Colombian origins

• Coffee in Colombia: the whole country, its harvests and its figures.
• Huila: Colombia’s biggest producer, just to the south.
• Quindío: the heart of the coffee axis, to the west.
• Cauca: one main harvest, high in the Colombian Massif.