The first customer to eat at Helena Adentro arrived on horseback.
The first nonindigenous settlers in the area arrived along a similar route in the early 19th century.
It was carried in, the story goes, by Jesuit missionaries who prescribed its planting as penance.
From left: Towering wax palms in Colombia’s Cocora Valley; Carlos Alberto Zuluaga Mejía at his coffee farm, Finca El Recuerdo.Credit: Caroll Taveras
Zuluagas 10-acre farm near the village of Salento is a throwback to the regions earliest plantations.
Coffee was nothing more than a cash crop.
Here, you dont have to constantly doubt whether something is possible, Fajardo told me.
The dining room at Filandia restaurant Helena Adentro.Caroll Taveras
The government and FARC signed a tentative peace agreement in 2016.
Transformation came, as it often does, on the heels of crisis.
I think were seeing a generational change with this growing interest in nature and conservation, she told me.
From left: A suite at Bio Habitat Hotel; blackberry soda with macerated lime and mint at Helena Adentro.Caroll Taveras
And the same thing is happening in restaurants.
Were working with local farms, traditional flavors, indigenous ingredients.
It was Giraldo who took me to Zuluagas farm that afternoon.
From left: The veranda of the main building at La Cabaña Ecohotel, which is set on a working farm; bird-watching in the Cocora Valley with Nicolás Giraldo Echeverry, cofounder of Penelope Birding.Caroll Taveras
Its Colombian flavors combined in new ways.
Where to Stay
Bio Habitat Hotelis a collection of glass tree-house-style suites surrounded by lush forest.
A version of this story first appeared in the July 2020 issue ofTravel + Leisureunder the headlineA Richer Brew.
From left: La Tertulia, a classically Colombian café in the town of Calarcá that serves high-quality beans and unusual varietals; a tasting at the coffee farm El Fenix.Caroll Taveras
