Colombia has a mixed reputation internationally, but nearly everyone agrees that its coffee is world class.

For millions of Colombians from the capital of Bogota to the rural Eje Cafetero.

Coffee is a way of life.

Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman , was provided by Agnese Haury.

music If you're one of the more than four billion people in the world who love coffee, you know that Colombia is a very special place.

To get to the coffee producing area you have to stop first in Bogota, the capital.

It's a city of seven million people.

I brought along with me my friend Bill Beezley, an expert on Colombian history.

We're planning to meet up with Colombian, cultural anthropologist and coffee expert, Marcela Vasquez.

Bogota is a proud and beautiful city built on the model of Spanish cities like Madrid and we're in the Candelaria neighborhood, the oldest part of the city, with beautiful buildings, a history of Bohemian people, musicians, artists, poets.

About a block away from the Plaza Bolívar.

Yeah, I can see it down there.

Yes, that's the political and religious center of Bogota and the nation of Colombia.

Right now we are in the plaza Bolívar, which is at the heart of the city.

We are surrounded by buildings that date back to colonial times.

In the back, is the capital building.

On that side, we have the Palace of Justice and on my right is the Iglesia, which is the largest cathedral in Colombia.

It was built in 1807 and it took about twenty years to finish it.

It is in this site that the first mass was celebrated in Bogota in 1538.

Bogota is a great example or a great case study of urban renewal.

Today Bogota is considered the Athens of South America because of the number of museums, libraries, universities that it has.

It has also been named the city of music by UNESCO in 2012.

Colombians are proud of their musicians of all type, classical and popular, Shakira, Juanes, are two of the most popular musicians in the world, not just the Spanish speaking world.

That's true and here is the parade up here.

It's chilly in Bogota at 8,000 feet.

I'm here to find out about coffee.

Let me tell you, the aroma of coffee in here is enchanting.

(Spanish) To Colombian coffee.

Lao.

Gracias Lao.

The captains of the coffee industry in Colombia were very smart to create this symbol.

Juan Valdez is a brilliant image of the Paisa culture and the Paisa culture is represented by those frontiersmen, who in the middle of the 19th century moved into Central West Colombia and started planting coffee.

They were wildly successful at it and in the end they created a culture, a food, a coffee, music and a symbol for all Colombians.

Paisas are people from northwestern Colombia.

The heart of Paisa country is also coffee country.

It's a mountainous and hilly land, a few valleys west of Bogota.

We're heading out into the general region, which is known as Quindio and it's the coffee center of Colombia.

I haven't seen a single coffee tree in town.

They'll be a few million out in the boonies and we'll find out a lot more about coffee.

Colombia is a very mountainous country.

Thanks to the great Codillera of the Andes.

The Andes have brought both joy and sorrow to Colombia, numerous earthquakes, many volcanic eruptions that have killed thousands of people, but they have also brought volcanic soil to the coffee region and that is a producer of great joy.

In the coffee growing region, there is one Pueblo, one small town that's well known throughout Colombia for its beauty, its location, its streams nearby.

It's called Salento.

It has a peculiar history and its kept its compact nature for 100 years or so.

(Spanish) Travelers founded this town.

Originally it was an ancient pathway used by indigenous people.

Then it became a royal road used by the Spaniards as a part of the colonization process throughout the Americas.

Later on it was used by merchants who settled throughout the region.

This town grew as travelers died and their survivors stayed on.

Salento is different from other towns and for many years the inhabitants retained the magic of the past as they hold on to the old traditions and customs.

There is a strong sense of belonging to this land, where many have lived for numerous generations.

(Spanish) Traditional dress has given away to a modern lifestyle, but up until about twenty years ago it was common to see the Paisa, a kind of mountain man walk around with his checkered poncho and leathered satchel in the traditional Paisa style.

To get out of the rain, I've worked my way into a hat shop and I recognize these hats as being indigenous.

They're from the coast and I know they're made of palm but I've never seen anything like them before.

I have to try one on.

I think it will probably last me well.

It's woven by hand, sewn together and in a wet climate.

It's perfect.

Okay you follow the guide, and then you just fold it and this hat is from a place called Tochin from the coast.

That's right on the Pacific.

Then you just turn it around, turn it like this and you can put it in your pocket.

So when I'm riding on my horse or my burro and the sun comes out, I can pull it out and put it on.

I see.

You can see why Salento has become a major tourist attraction here in central Colombia.

It's not just the native materials, oh well they're great, but the addition of European elements, the balconies and the overhangs and all the colors and the narrow streets.

Put those together and you have this combination of effects, that really is irresistible.

So tell me about the Eje Cafetero Okay the Eje Cafetero is the heartland of coffee production in Colombia.

It has very specific characteristics that make coffee specially good.

So it's produced between 4,000 and 6,000 feet, so the high altitude makes it really good.

If you go higher than that it changes.

It's too cold up there.

It also has, there's a lot of rain here and volcanic soil.

So the soil is very good for coffee.

Just a very special combination in here and we get really good coffee.

Well, there is a machine.

This looks like a bomb, it looks like a Rube Goldberg.

(Spanish) So this is from 1905.

(Spanish) These are real Italian.

I feel like I'm in the Giro d'Italia bike race.

And we can make some coffee.

Do you know how to operate this?

Yeah!

Alright, I'm going to stand back.

So now we conserve and have a really good cup of coffee.

Oh that's how you clean the dishes.

(Spanish) It's very good coffee, huh?

That is very good coffee!

Yeah!

The Quindío coffee producing region is dotted with small coffee producing farms, family owned farms over 500 of them.

Small producers mean small towns, traditional towns some of them with very distinct local architecture.

(Spanish) The architecture here is unique, much the way a world heritage site is unique.

We are in the landscape of coffee plantations and the buildings fit in well with the environment.

Their walls are made from bamboo, insulated with horse manure and then stuccoed with plaster.

The design is called ?

?

Colombiano.

Finlandia is also known as the heartland of coffee basket making.

The sign here says this is the handy craft route of Quindío and the first example we have are these baskets.

These are utilitarian, no question.

Probably, for gathering the cherries is what they call the fruits of the coffee, the cherries of the coffee beans.

This would be about the right size for the average harvester.

You could put 20 or 30 lbs of coffee in there pulling them off the trees as fast as they could.

Coffee harvesters seem to have given up on the old time baskets.

Everyone uses plastic ones instead.

In the country of Colombia, the coffee farms vary from about ten acres, which is the average.

To this one it's about 100 acres, so there's a huge variation.

This is a rather large one, but the area is just a mosaic of farms.

Each with its own personality and probably each with its own distinct variety because of the changes in topography, the changes, the tiny changes in rainfall.

The amount of exposure to sun and the soil, so everyone's distinct.

(Spanish) We are on the Potosi La Vereda coffee plantation.

We have several different varieties of coffee beans.

We have Colombia la Suprema and the Caturra variety.

Japanese buyers want only Caturra beans.

While, others want the Colombia beans.

They are completely different without one being better than the other, just like there are tastes for everything.

These plants are just a year old and already they are producing.

These little coffee trees are now two years old and they are full of cherries.

After only two years, thousands and thousands of them and look at that potential cup of coffee there.

You can almost smell the aroma.

(Spanish) My grandparents were coffee growers as well as my father.

This plantation is my inheritance from both my parents.

Over the last few years, more and more women have entered the gremio or the fraternity of growers.

We manage our own lands, we understand the entire process.

In the beginning, it was not easy.

We must know how to manage all aspects of the coffee production process.

How, where and when to plant, fertilize, harvest and restore the fields.

In the Quindío region they plant on very steep hillsides.

Their plants only grow to one meter, 80 centimeters tall.

In other countries, they plant trees that will grow much taller and they harvest them all by machine.

Here, it's hand harvested.

We're now among the adult trees that are in the height of their production and although we're not on the full harvest season, there's still plenty of the cherries.

(Spanish) So you can squeeze the cherry and the coffee bean drops out and this is actually sweet tasting.

We're going to take these right now to where they call the beneficio, the processing plant that will remove this outer pulp and we will then have the next stage of the coffee beans ready to go.

(Spanish) Well, it's passed through the initial processing plant and come out here and the only way that they can guarantee that it contains, that the coffee contains the best possible Colombian flavor is to dry it here and they can lift it up and they can listen to the sound the coffee makes when it is falling.

And that way they can tell if it's really ready to be made into coffee, very traditional, very individually sensitive.

It's not commercialized.

(Spanish) We are in the center of Colombia's coffee heartland.

A region whose tradition are longstanding.

Traditions passed onto us by our forefathers.

A half hour drive takes us to another small producer with a very different philosophy.

(Spanish) Our coffee groves are lush gardens.

We are very proud of what we have created here.

We have faced many difficulties with pests and we have successfully resisted without ever using a single gram of pesticides.

We've all heard of shade grown coffee and this is shade grown coffee and this is shade grown coffee.

This is shade from these great old trees and these particular coffee trees are very old.

They are traced back to the founding of the town of Córdoba, a hundred years ago.

(Spanish) Arboleda could have ended up as just another coffee producing farm and nothing else.

A cup of Arboleda coffee is one of perfection because this coffee is grown, while protecting the environment and caring and loving the land and the soil.

These old trees are pure Arabica coffee, which generally is conceded to be the best there is.

That's what they started with here and then they've branched into other varieties but this is the old scion the old original coffee tree from right here.

(Spanish) Our coffee is produced with zero agro chemicals so that the natural micro organisms that live in this ecosystem are not harmed.

One of the philosophies here at La Arboleda Coffee farm is to keep the old varieties.

They've been here for so long, things have worked their way out and so they can work organically or without chemicals because it's all part of a well-established coffee ecosystem.

(Spanish) We could use this here as a teaching tool so that other coffee producers would follow this example and perhaps see these kind of eco friendly, organic farming as a source of national pride.

We've formed an association of women coffee growers called the Córdoba Women's Coffee Association.

We have recently created our own brand or women coffee.

Just because you're using a sustainable form of coffee raising doesn't mean you can't use technology to your advantage.

With this plastic canopy here, they don't have to worry about the rain and they still get the advantage of whatever sun there is.

So in ten days they move all this coffee around and they have dry beans.

They don't have to worry about them getting wet from the often very heavy rain they get here.

It's a real good idea.

(Spanish) When coffee is ground, the natural, exquisite aroma is liberated and then we can brew it into a wondrous liquid cup of coffee.

Coffee cultivation is my destiny, my happiness.

This is what I do everyday, I produce coffee.

I love coffee.

Coffee production isn't all work.

Fiestas are an important part of Paisa life.

We're in the town Calarca, not far from Armenia in the center of coffee country.

Every year they have a parade, a celebration and the parade ends with the crowning of the coffee queen.

Each department brings their beauty queen and their dances and music and theatre to show.

So the judges decide on a combination or is it just the queen herself?

No, they do decide on a combination, but most important is the queen, but the beauty of the queen is not just the physical appearance.

It comes with the beauty of whatever she brings behind her, which is the comparsas and the happiness about it and the colors and what each represents from where they come from.

That's the La Chapolera, it's a type of CamposinaColombiana.

Her name comes from a butterfly, known as Chapora, which migrates to the coffee farms during times of harvest.

They come from all over the country, they're trying to show off their queen and make as much noise as possible and my guess is a little bribery involved as well.

They all come together here, there's a lot of prestige in the making and their queen has to show that she has the stuff to be queen of the coffee festival.

Tolima is coming up here, now this woman, I watched her from down below.

She's very light skinned, Yeah.

She's very active, but she can play the drums extremely well.

Does that help?

I think it helps, of course.

We have a representation of real folk arts here, folk dances.

These are people coming from the countryside.

There used to be people who did nothing but carry other people.

We see them here and then we see the folk, the dresses of women from the country side, who are really working in the fields.

There's got to be an excuse for a parade, but this kind is a little bit different one, in it's sort of has an international aspect to a very local product.

As far as I know, every coffee producing country has a celebration to celebrate the product and it's so much fun because they're talking about coffee, but they're also celebrating their regional community and their folklore.

The natural history of the place that they're involved in.

Oh my gosh, here comes the devil.

Oh my gosh.

That's got to be very hot to carry that costume.

It seems to me, that these people are from Chocó, which is the Pacific.

There's a lot of former slaves that have settled in that area so there's got to be a big African influence in there.

Right, the Chocó region is where the slaves fled to in the 1800's.

There's a lot of themes of death in here of fantastic conceptions that are otherworldly.

Right and conceptions about nature and the spirit.

That's very important.

They have a lot of talented acrobatic, stilt walkers.

Yes.

We know we are in Colombia.

It couldn't be any other Spanish speaking country.

There's an exhilaration that is only possible in this country.

The National Coffee festival has been celebrated in Calarca, every year since 1960.

The floats, in which the candidates are standing, are designed specifically for the event by local artists.

Each candidate represents Colombia's cultural diversity, mainly in terms of dance and music.

The winner of the pageant represents Colombia in the international coffee pageant.

Coffee is native to Ethiopia, but because of its special growing conditions, Colombia has become the best-known international exporter.

Here, coffee has produced a beverage, a culture, and a way of life.

It has been our nation's greatest physical barrier.

Its looming presence struck fear into the hearts of men and women.

It caused our most famous case of cannibalism.

It produced the world's richest gold mines.

It was the cause of civil war battles.

It's the Sierra Nevada.

Join us next time In the Americas , with me, David Yetman.

My friend Nicholas is what we might call a coffee missionary from Armenia.

He is unusual.

(Spanish) So he has the traveling coffee box, we've got 500 of these boxes going around the world to tell the world how great coffee is.

Every process of the coffee from the grinding it, to the heating of the water, to the making of the coffee, to the drinking it is contained in this little box.