Colombia produces some of the best coffees in the world, yet most Colombians drink mediocre coffee. That contradiction—which seems impossible but is real—is why Green Hills Coffee exists.
We are producers. We plant, harvest, process, and roast our own coffee on a farm in Antioquia. We don't buy from intermediaries, we don't blend origins, we don't hide the chain. Every bag we sell comes from Hacienda Las Mercedes, and is signed with the full traceability of what we did with that bean.
This is the story of why we choose to do it this way—and why we believe it's the only honest way to sell specialty coffee.
The problem with the Colombian coffee we drink
Colombia exports 90% of the best coffee it produces. What remains in the local market is, for the most part, coffee that does not qualify for export. This is why a Colombian can spend their entire life drinking Colombian coffee without ever having tasted an exceptional Colombian coffee.
The traditional chain works like this: the producer sells to an intermediary, who sells to an exporter, who sells to an international roaster, who sells to the final consumer. At each step, origins are blended, traces are hidden, and particularities are diluted.
The result is an anonymous product: "Colombian coffee," with no farm name, no specific altitude, no documented process. Good, on average. Exceptional, almost never.
Our commitment: to do everything on the farm
When we started Green Hills, we made a counterintuitive decision: to do everything ourselves. Not subcontracting the roasting. Not outsourcing the packaging. Not mixing with coffee from other farms.
It's more expensive. It's riskier. It's slower. And it's the only way to guarantee that quality reaches the consumer without losing what makes it special.
Today, at Hacienda Las Mercedes we do:
- Selective manual harvesting — only cherries at their perfect point of ripeness.
- Varied processing methods — washed, honey, natural, and experimental such as carbonic maceration.
- Drying on patios and African beds — slow, manual, with daily turning.
- Own hulling and selection — bean by bean, defects discarded by hand.
- On-farm roaster — curves designed for each profile, in small batches.
- Own vacuum packaging — from roasting to your kitchen, without oxygen.
When you buy a Green Hills coffee, you are buying all these decisions made with careful consideration.
Why this matters to you as a consumer
Control over the chain is not just a brand argument. It has concrete consequences in your cup:
- Freshness — the coffee arrives at your home weeks after roasting, not months or years later.
- Traceability — you can know exactly which lot your coffee comes from, what SCA score it obtained, and how it was processed.
- Consistency — the profile is maintained between batches because we control every variable.
- Variety — we can offer very different profiles from the same farm: Tradition, Honey, Natural, premium line.
- Honesty — no generic "premium coffee." What we say on the label is what you will taste in the cup.
The six coffees that define what we do
Each Green Hills profile represents a different way of thinking about Colombian coffee:
- Tradition — our classic washed. Chocolate, panela, balanced body. It's the well-made version of traditional Colombian coffee.
- Honey — natural sweetness through processing. Peach, caramel, raspberry. The coffee that shows you don't need sugar for it to be sweet.
- Natural — dry fermentation. Red fruits, plum, passion fruit. The coffee that doesn't taste like coffee.
- Bronze — carbonic maceration. Wine, fermented fruits, spices. The coffee that learned from the wine world.
- Silver — extended controlled fermentation. Passion fruit, lychee, white flowers. The coffee that surprises.
- Gold — special selection lot, SCA score 87+. The treasure of the farm. Very limited production, changing profile depending on the harvest.
Six coffees, one single farm. Same origin, same team, same level of care — completely different processes for very different experiences in the cup.
What's next
We keep experimenting. Each harvest is an opportunity to improve what we already do well and explore what we haven't done yet. The experimental processes that are now our premium line were, five years ago, ideas that were on the discussion table.
We have plans for limited editions, micro-lots, collaborations with other producers who share our way of doing things. When the time comes for each, we will share it here.
Meanwhile, our job is to produce the best coffee Hacienda Las Mercedes can offer — and ensure that coffee reaches your kitchen with everything that makes it special intact.
An invitation
If you've never tried a single-origin Colombian coffee, we invite you to start. Not by brand — by curiosity. Buy a bag of any of our profiles, taste it carefully, and decide for yourself if the difference matters.
If you already know us and are reading this, thank you. Every cup you drink is what makes it possible for us to continue making coffee this way. Without your support, this way of producing Colombian coffee — slower, more expensive, more honest — simply would not exist in the local market.
We will continue to bet on the best coffee from Colombia. We hope you will join us.
Discover the six coffees from Hacienda Las Mercedes. Each with a distinct profile, all from the same origin, all with the signature of a producer who controls the entire chain.
