The best coffee in Medellín

Coffee in Medellín today

Colombia is one of the world's best-known coffee producers, and Antioquia, the department around Medellín, is one of its most important growing regions. For a long time, though, most of the best beans were exported and Colombians drank a thin, sweet tinto made from lower grades. That has changed. Medellín now has a lively specialty coffee scene, with cafés that roast their own beans, name the farms they buy from and brew by hand.

The easiest places to find good coffee are El Poblado, especially around Provenza and Manila, and Laureles. But even a simple bakery tinto is part of the experience.

How to order

• Tinto: a small cup of black filter coffee, the everyday Colombian coffee, often sweetened.
• Perico or pintado: coffee with a little milk, like a cortado.
• Café con leche: a larger milky coffee.
• Filtrado or método: at specialty cafés, a single-origin coffee brewed by hand with methods like V60, Chemex or a French press.
• Cold brew: increasingly common in specialty cafés.

If you're new to specialty coffee, order a filter coffee from a fruity, washed or natural-process lot and compare it with an espresso of a more classic Colombian profile.

The cafés

Pergamino, El Poblado and around the city. A Medellín company whose flagship coffee comes from Finca Lomaverde, its own farm in Santa Bárbara, south of the city, with chocolate, caramel and yellow-fruit notes. Through a partner-producer program, it also buys traceable lots from growers in places like Buesaco in Nariño and Alto de Letras in Tolima, paying for quality rather than selling the coffee as anonymous "Colombian". Its best-known café is on Calle 10B in El Poblado, with others on Vía Primavera, in Manila, Laureles, Ciudad del Río, Envigado, several malls and both terminals of José María Córdova airport. Every café sells beans to take home.

El Café de Otraparte, Envigado. A café-restaurant in the grounds of the house where writer and philosopher Fernando González lived, now a house museum. It's less about brewing methods and more about the setting: a quiet place to read and talk over coffee, breakfast or a meal, then walk through the museum.

Hotel cafés. Several hotels have good cafés open to everyone. Real Eatery at The Charlee serves brunch all day near Provenza, and Basílico at Hotel Casa Laureles serves Colombian coffee and pastries in Laureles.

Many neighborhood bakeries also serve a decent tinto alongside buñuelos and pandequeso, and that pairing is as much a part of paisa coffee culture as any specialty bar. We'll add more cafés to this guide as we check them. Medellín's café scene changes quickly, so if you have a favorite, tell us.

Buying coffee to take home

• Buy whole beans from a specialty café, and ask when they were roasted. Fresher is better.
• Look for the farm and region on the bag. Traceable coffee usually means better quality and a fairer price for the grower.
• Pack it in your checked bag or carry-on. Roasted coffee is a common souvenir. Check your home country's customs rules, but roasted coffee is generally allowed.
• Last chance: Pergamino has cafés in both the domestic and international departure areas at the airport, open 24 hours.

Visiting a coffee farm

Seeing coffee grow is one of the best things to do in Antioquia. Coffee is grown on steep, green slopes where the climate is mild, so the farms are often beautiful places in their own right. A typical tour walks you through the plants, explains how the cherries are picked, pulped, washed, dried and roasted, and ends with a tasting.

You have 2 main options:

• A half-day tour from Medellín. There are coffee farms within about an hour's drive of the city that run guided visits, usually with transport from El Poblado or Laureles. Book with a registered tour operator or through your hotel, and check what's included.
• A night or two in a coffee town. For the full experience, head to southwestern Antioquia. Jardín, about 3.5 hours from Medellín by bus, is a heritage town surrounded by coffee farms that offer tours, plus waterfalls and birdwatching.

If you want to go deeper, Colombia's Coffee Cultural Landscape, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, covers coffee-growing areas in the departments of Caldas, Quindío, Risaralda and Valle del Cauca, south of Antioquia. Read our day trips guide for more ideas.