If you had told me ten years ago that part of my work as a children’s author and storyteller would involve researching Colombian coffee at 6am while balancing a notebook in one hand and a mug in the other, I might have laughed. Yet here we are.
Writing is fuelled by imagination, deadlines and caffeine, and I often joke that Space Ranger Fred owes some of his biggest adventures to whatever coffee happened to be inside my cup that day. Colombian roasts in particular seem to bring out a certain spark – the kind that makes exploding cakes, shoelace-tying emperors and intergalactic peg gadgets feel perfectly reasonable on the page.
But coffee, like stories, deserves to be understood. And Colombia – often celebrated as the king of arabica coffee – hides far more secrets than most people realise. So grab a cup, settle in, and let me share five things you probably didn’t know about Colombian coffee, told through the lens of a writer whose brain rarely switches off.
1. Colombia’s Coffee Comes Mostly From Small Family Farms – Some Smaller Than a Garden
Most people imagine sprawling plantations stretching for miles, tended by machines and workers marching in neat rows. The reality could not be more different.
Over 95% of Colombian coffee farms are under 12 acres, and many are so small they feel more like extended gardens carved into green mountainsides. Many are family-run – passed down through generations like a treasured storybook. Children grow up learning to recognise the perfect bean by touch alone.
This resonates deeply with me as a storyteller. A book is never created by accident. It is built by hands that know each line, each phrase, the way a farmer knows each tree. When I write Space Ranger Fred or develop a script for animation, I feel the same intimacy – a sense of tending to a world that began as a seed.
Perhaps that is why Colombian coffee tastes the way it does – you can almost feel the fingerprints of generations.
And it makes me wonder how Fred might describe such farms if he landed his spaceship in the Andes:
“Permission to explore coffee planet granted,” Zando Centauri would announce, before promptly tripping over a sack of beans and declaring them “advanced caffeine pods used for rocket fuel.”
2. Colombia’s Coffee Has Altitude Superpowers
Most Colombian coffee is grown at altitudes between 1,200 and 2,000 metres above sea level – the equivalent of placing a coffee tree halfway up a mountain and asking it to perform magic tricks.
Up there, days are warm, nights are cool, and the beans grow slowly. Slow growing means denser beans, richer flavour and a complexity that coffee enthusiasts proudly shout about. But altitude has another unexpected effect: coffee cherries ripen at different speeds. Pickers often return to the same tree up to eight separate times because cherries must be picked by hand at exactly the right moment.
Can you imagine harvesting something so carefully that you return again and again until the story is complete?
Writers do the same. A sentence rarely arrives perfect on its first draft. Sometimes you must climb the mountain over and over before it is ready. I have rewritten chapters of Space Ranger Fred more times than I could ever admit in public. But when it finally lands – when it finally tastes right on the page – it is worth every climb.
3. Coffee in Colombia Was Nearly a Religious Ritual
Long before coffee became a global industry, it was something closer to a sacred tradition. In the early 1800s, coffee was planted in Colombia by priests. Yes – priests.
They encouraged communities to plant trees as a sign of discipline, duty and prosperity. Coffee became woven into cultural identity, a symbol of future hope. By 1835, coffee exports began, and by 1912, it was the country’s largest national product.
I love the idea that something as simple as a bean could shape hope, prayer and domestic ritual. Stories do this too. They take tiny ideas – a boy, a dog, a shoelace, a palace in space – and transform them into journeys children carry with them their whole lives.
Coffee built Colombian communities.
Stories build imagination.
If Space Ranger Fred ever found himself sipping coffee with a Colombian priest in 1835, I imagine the conversation would end with Fred offering to build a galactic transport system for coffee beans. Zando, of course, would find a way to turn it into a counting lesson involving exploding bean sacks.
4. Colombia Has an Official Coffee Icon – And He’s a Fictional Character
Here is a fact most people never hear: Colombia’s most internationally recognised symbol of national pride is a character who doesn’t actually exist. His name is Juan Valdez, a fictional farmer created in 1958 as part of a marketing campaign.
Juan Valdez and his mule, Conchita, were invented to embody the idea of Colombian coffee being handpicked by small farmers. The character became so beloved that many believe he is real. In a strange and poetic twist, fiction has defined reality.
As an author, that gives me goosebumps. Stories are powerful enough to influence culture, economy and identity. A fictional character helped shape the value of an industry worth billions.
Which makes me quietly wonder – who knows what Space Ranger Fred could become in 50 years? A character who helps children master shoelaces today might inspire future engineers tomorrow.
Stories have long shadows.
5. Colombia Grows Coffee All Year Round – But Harvests Like a Symphony
While many regions harvest coffee once a year, Colombia benefits from two harvests: the primary harvest and the mitaca (a smaller crop halfway through the year). Because of Colombia’s varied climate zones and geography, different regions ripen at different times.
This means the country always has coffee in process – drying on rooftops, fermenting in baskets, being sold at roadside stalls, and carried by mule across narrow bridges.
It is not one giant harvest, but an orchestra of many, each region contributing its own note.
The life of an author works the same way. To the outside eye it looks like books simply appear. In reality, ideas are always at different stages. Some drying, some fermenting, some being rewritten for the fifth time because Fred has suddenly insisted on throwing a custard pie.
Books, like coffee, are never “finished.” They simply reach a point where they are ready to be shared.
A Final Sip – What Coffee Taught Me About Writing
Colombian coffee has a soul – it is patient, hand-tended, multi-generational and shaped by story.
Researching it reminded me of why I write, especially when spending long evenings fine-tuning a chapter or planning how to turn Space Ranger Fred into a video game and animated series.
Coffee and children’s stories have more in common than one might expect:
- Both are grown slowly.
- Both require human hands.
- Both connect people who have never met.
- Both offer a spark of energy – one emotional, one caffeinated.
And both, in their own way, make mornings easier.
Right now I am writing multiple books, leading animation development, and preparing projects I could never have imagined when I first put pen to paper in 2015. Some days I feel like a Colombian farmer – tending ideas one page at a time, trusting that at the right moment, they will be ready.
So next time you sip Colombian coffee, remember you are drinking a story.
And if your children sit beside you reading Space Ranger Fred, know that both of you, in different ways, are sharing the same magic.
About Matt Newnham
Matt Newnham is a British children’s author, speaker and storyteller, best known for the Space Ranger Fred series. His mission is to make learning fun and accessible through stories that spark imagination and curiosity. He writes from West Sussex, usually powered by coffee.
