6 Colombian Coffees Reviewed and Ranked: Best and Worst Picks

Our 2020 taste test scored six Colombian coffees out of five. La Colombe's San Roque won at 4.5. See every score, which bags are still sold and what their makers list today.

By Jay Arr Updated

This article accompanies our video from September 2020.

In 2020 we tasted six Colombian coffees, from specialty roasters’ single-origin bags to supermarket brands, and scored each out of five stars. The scores and tasting notes here come from that video: each coffee got an on-screen score card listing its roast level and the notes we picked out.

A correction. An earlier version of this page had four of the six scores wrong, called the tasting blind (the video doesn’t say it was), and named the winner “Lucalum’s San Roque”. The video’s cards show La Colombe’s Colombia – San Roque. The scores below now match the cards.

Our 2020 scores

These are the scores on each coffee’s card in the video. Two pairs tied, and the video doesn’t separate them.

Coffee; roast (2020 card)ScoreWhat we tasted
La Colombe Colombia – San Roque; light4.5Cherry first, subtler chocolate, a punchy fruity finish
Stumptown Nariño Borderlands; medium3.5Citrus and fruit, traces of toast, floral malt and honey; juicy
Café Altura organic Colombian; medium3.5Strong chocolate and fruit, little complexity, creamy body
Jim’s Organic Colombian (Santa Marta); dark to medium3.0Cherry and dark chocolate, a little burnt, woody and bitter
Eight O’Clock Colombian Peaks; medium3.0Some fruit, mellow but bold, with a distracting papery note
The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf organic Colombian; dark2.5Leathery and earthy, harsh, woody, noticeably bitter

The one light roast, from a named producer association, scored a full point above everything else we tried. That’s one tasting of six bags in 2020, not a rule about Colombian coffee.

The coffees, one by one

What each maker sells now was checked on its own website on October 18, 2026. Coffee is a crop, so a coffee sold under the same name today may come from a different harvest, or a different farm, than the bag we tasted.

La Colombe Colombia – San Roque: 4.5

Our pick for the best Colombian in the selection. It tasted cherry-forward, with the chocolate more subtle and a punchy, fruity aftertaste: an all-round light roast that we thought would also blend well with darker roasts. The video credits the beans to producers in the San Roque association.

Now: La Colombe still sells it, as a light roast, listing clementines, cherry cola and chocolate (the same notes as our 2020 card) from fully washed, sun-dried Colombian beans. A 12 oz bag was listed at $21 when checked October 18, 2026. La Colombe’s page doesn’t name the region; Coffee Review’s February 2025 review of it describes Caturra grown by smallholders of the Asociación San Roque in Huila. Hoffmann puts Huila’s coffee at 1,250–2,000 m (4,100–6,600 ft) and writes that some of the most complex, fruit-driven Colombian coffees he has tasted came from there.

Stumptown Nariño Borderlands: 3.5

A strong coffee overall, with notes of citrus and fruit and traces of toast, floral malt and honey: a light, juicy cup with a viscous medium body. It was on the expensive side, but very good.

Now: Stumptown no longer lists a Nariño Borderlands. Its current Nariño coffee is Colombia Huayku, from Federación Abades, a group of more than 200 smallholders growing at 1,850–2,000 m. Stumptown writes that the federation formed in 2017 after six years in Catholic Relief Services’ Borderland Project, and that it has bought from these producers since 2013. Huayku showed as out of stock when checked. Hoffmann writes that some of Colombia’s highest coffees grow in Nariño, and that they can be some of its most stunning and complex.

Café Altura organic Colombian: 3.5

Strong hints of chocolate and fruit gave it a rich flavor, but its complexity was minimal. The acidity was fairly high, balanced by a creamy medium body. It came in a 2 lb container and suited everyday drinking.

Now: Café Altura sells an organic “Colombia”, a medium roast it sources from 117 producers organized around Ecoterra SAS in Nariño, at 1,800–2,100 m, listing limeade, pomelo, cantaloupe, honey and chocolate. Its page doesn’t say where earlier lots came from, so this may not be the coffee we tasted.

Jim’s Organic Colombian: 3.0

Sourced, the video says, from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the mountains above Colombia’s Caribbean coast. A medium-to-dark roast with hints of cherry and dark chocolate, though the cherry tasted slightly harsh and even a little burnt, with a woody aftertaste. It was a bit bitter, with a moderate-to-distinct astringency, and the body sat between medium and full. Okay, and worth a try if organic matters to you.

Now: Jim’s sells “Colombia” as a single-origin medium roast with notes of milk chocolate and berry. It now sources from micro-regions in Santa Marta (Montesierra, in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta park), Huila and Tolima, depending on the harvest. Hoffmann describes the Sierra Nevada as lower than most Colombian regions, at 900–1,600 m (3,000–5,200 ft), with heavier, rounder coffees grown on very steep slopes.

Eight O’Clock Colombian Peaks: 3.0

It started with traces of fruit and bright, unburnt flavors; the taste was mellow, consistent and still bold, with a medium body. Our card noted a papery, winey character, and the papery note was a distraction. We put it at about the same quality as Jim’s: not bad, not outstanding.

Now: Eight O’Clock still sells 100% Colombian Peaks, a medium roast of Colombian arabica that it describes as “rich, winey and full bodied”.

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf organic Colombian: 2.5

Our least favorite. A dark roast with a leathery, earthy character, slightly harsh on the palate, with what we called a woody aftertaste, and noticeably bitter. We’d try plenty of alternatives before this one, most of them cheaper.

Now: not in The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf’s current range. It sells a Colombia single origin from Nariño instead, in a medium and a dark roast.

Which to buy now

Of the bags still sold, these scored best with us:

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Whichever you buy, check the roast date. Our Freshness tool treats days 7 to 21 after roasting as a typical best window for filter coffee; a typical window, not a promise for your bag.

Brewing a light Colombian

Our winner was the one light roast, and our Brew Guide sets a hotter kettle for light roasts. For a 12 fl oz V60 of a light roast, our Brew Guide starts at 1:16 with the kettle at 205°F (96°C). If the cup tastes sour or bitter, change the grind first; our V60 guide walks through it.

Colombia, briefly

USDA counts Colombia’s whole crop as arabica and forecasts 13.4 million 60 kg bags for 2026/27: about 7 percent of its forecast world total of 189.7 million bags (calculated), and third after Brazil and Vietnam. (An earlier version of this page said “roughly 12%”, which was wrong.) The country’s coffee growers’ federation, the FNC, reports 13.7 million bags for calendar year 2025.

Hoffmann describes Colombian coffees as covering a huge range, from heavier, chocolatier cups to jammy, sweet, fruity lots. Where our bags named a region, it was one he describes: Huila (La Colombe), Nariño (Stumptown, and Café Altura’s current lot) and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Jim’s). The supermarket bags named none. Our guide to Colombian coffee flavor notes covers the regions, the two harvests a year, the varieties and what “Supremo” on a bag does and doesn’t mean.

For a contrast, our Ethiopian and Sumatran taste tests scored seven coffees each, and our guide to single-origin coffee explains what a label like “Colombia – San Roque” tells you.

Sources

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