Imagine turning a failed weekend retreat into Medellín's coolest coffee empire—that’s the Echavarría family's story. From discovering leftover beans on an old estate to flipping coffee culture by keeping Colombia's best beans in-country, they've created Pergamino, featuring eleven cafes and a mission to champion local taste, overcoming a past filled with uncertainty and conflict.
The Echavarría family didn’t set out to revolutionize Colombian coffee culture. They just wanted to know where their beans were going.
Picture this: it’s the 1970s, and a businessman named Pedro Echavarría buys a small abandoned farm in the mountains of Antioquia. He’s looking for a weekend retreat, maybe somewhere to escape the chaos of city life. Instead, he discovers something unexpected under the overgrown forest—abandoned coffee trees from what turns out to be a fragment of a legendary 19th-century estate called Hacienda Jonás.
What started as a hobby became an obsession. The obsession became a career. And four decades later, that impulse purchase has transformed into Pergamino, a coffee empire spanning eleven cafés, hundreds of producer partnerships, and a mission to keep Colombia’s best beans where they belong—in Colombia.
Here’s something most people don’t realize about Colombia: for generations, the country exported virtually all of its premium coffee while locals drank the leftovers. The good stuff went to roasters in Italy, Germany, and Japan. Colombians got the dregs—often instant coffee or low-grade beans sweetened into oblivion.
It’s like if France shipped all its best wine abroad and drank grape juice at home.
The Echavarría family played by these rules for years. They grew exceptional coffee at their Santa Barbara Estate, sold it through the national federation or to commodity traders, and watched it disappear into the global supply chain. They had zero control over where it ended up, who roasted it, or what price it ultimately fetched.
Pedro Jr. (yes, he shares his father’s name—Colombian tradition) grew up watching this happen. He studied business at Tufts University in Massachusetts, spent time in the US and Australia soaking up the third-wave coffee movement, and came back to Colombia with a radical idea: what if they just… stopped doing that?
In 2010, the family launched Pergamino as their own milling and export operation. Two years later, in 2012, Pedro opened the first Pergamino café on Via Primavera in El Poblado—a beautiful space designed to prove a point. Colombian coffee didn’t need to leave the country to be exceptional. It just needed Colombians who cared enough to keep it.
The Echavarría story isn’t all mountain sunrises and cupping sessions. Colombia’s recent history is complicated, and the family lived through all of it.
During the dark days of Pablo Escobar’s reign, Pedro Sr. received reliable information that he and his family were on a hit list. That night, he put his three children in a car and drove from Medellín to Bogotá. For two years, he couldn’t go home. When business required trips back to Medellín, he traveled in disguise, switching cars, living like a fugitive while trying to support his family.
The guerrilla conflicts made things worse. During peace negotiations, armed groups expanded their territory through extortion campaigns targeting farming communities. For years, the family couldn’t even visit Santa Barbara Estate. They relied on loyal employees who tended the farm like it was their own.
It wasn’t until the early 2000s that security improved enough for real investment. Pedro Sr. poured money into tree renovation, infrastructure, roads, schools, and housing for workers. The farm became not just a business but a community anchor.
When Pedro Jr. tells this story, he says the first time he saw his father’s farm name on a bag of coffee in an American market, tears came to Don Pedro’s eyes. All those years of chaos, all that uncertainty—and here was proof that it meant something.
What started as one café has become something closer to a specialty coffee takeover of Medellín.
The original Via Primavera location remains the flagship—an airy terrace space that quickly became ground zero for El Poblado’s expat and startup crowd. High-speed WiFi, stylish interiors by architecture firm Base Taller, and cappuccinos that are genuinely a cut above made it an instant institution.
Then came the Calle 10B location, a two-story oasis for digital nomads in a quieter, leafier part of Poblado. The San Lucas spot went uphill to the residential suburbs. The Oviedo Shopping Center outpost brought Pergamino to the mall crowd. There are now locations in Laureles, Envigado, and two cafés at the José María Córdova International Airport—perfect for grabbing one last proper coffee before your flight or picking up beans as a last-minute gift.
The newest addition opened in July 2025 inside the bio-hotel El Tesoro, featuring something special: an in-store roaster. It’s the first Pergamino location where you can watch your beans being roasted while you wait.
But the Laureles café might be the most interesting architecturally. The designers didn’t want to demolish another old house and replace it with something generic. Instead, they meticulously restored an Art Deco building, preserving its original facade and transforming the interior into something that feels like stepping into the 1970s—wood walls, mint green chairs, intricate tilework, and a courtyard filled with plants. Sustainability wasn’t just a talking point; restoring rather than demolishing meant less waste, and the design prioritizes natural ventilation so they don’t need air conditioning.
Here’s where Pergamino becomes something genuinely different.
The family could have stopped at “we grow great coffee and sell it in nice cafés.” Instead, they built something much more ambitious: a network of over 600 smallholder producers across Antioquia, Cauca, and Nariño who get direct access to international specialty markets.
The math is simple but powerful. Pergamino offers a premium for specialty-grade coffees scoring 84 or above on the SCA grading system. Hit an even higher score, and your coffee gets exported as a single-origin micro-lot with an additional premium on top. Producers who qualify get two payments and see their farm’s name on bags shipped around the world.
It’s not charity—it’s a business model designed to create mutual benefit. Better prices incentivize better quality. Better quality attracts better buyers. Better buyers pay better prices. The cycle reinforces itself.
Every year after harvest, Pergamino holds an award ceremony for their allied producers. They recognize the growers, celebrate the good year, and build energy for the next season. Around 80% of the coffee Pergamino exports now comes through this program, not from their own farms.
The bigger picture matters too. Rural poverty is at the root of many of Colombia’s historical problems. Specialty coffee won’t solve everything, but it can transform individual communities. Pergamino has helped create something approaching a rural middle class of coffee growers—people with profitable businesses, not just subsistence farms.
All this backstory is meaningless if the coffee isn’t good. So let’s talk about what Pergamino actually serves.
The cafés offer multiple brewing methods for every origin: Aeropress, French Press, Chemex, or V60. The baristas are trained to explain the differences and help you pick based on what you like. If you just want something quick, “El Tinto” is always ready—a rotating coffee of the day.
The beans come from two sources. Some are grown at Santa Barbara Estate, the family’s own five-farm operation in Antioquia. These are named lots you can trace back to specific parcels of land: Lomaverde, La Joyería, and others. The rest come from allied producers, often from regions like Nariño that historically had little access to specialty buyers.
Varietals range from traditional Caturra and Colombia to newer arrivals like Chiroso—a mutation discovered near Urrao that’s been compared to the legendary Geisha for its aromatic complexity.
Beyond coffee, the food menu hits all the expected brunch notes: avocado toast, smoothie bowls, pastries, and sandwiches. The almond croissant has its own fan base. So does the onion and mushroom pie, weirdly.
Different locations, different vibes.
Via Primavera is the classic—busier, more touristy, perfect for people-watching across from Parque Lleras. The terrace under the trees has become one of those “must photograph” spots for visitors.
Calle 10B is where you go to actually get work done. It’s quieter, the WiFi is solid, and the two-story layout means you can always find a corner. The indoor-outdoor design keeps it breezy.
Laureles feels like you walked into someone’s beautifully restored home—because you basically did. The vintage aesthetic, the courtyard, the Art Deco details. It’s the most atmospheric of the locations.
The airport cafés are small but lifesavers when you need real coffee before a flight. They also sell beans, so you can grab a bag on your way out of the country.
No matter which location you hit, expect good service, English-speaking staff, and baristas who actually know what they’re doing. The WiFi passwords are on your receipt and change regularly.
Pergamino is part of a larger shift happening in Colombian coffee culture. For decades, the country produced some of the world’s best beans but didn’t really participate in the rewards of specialty coffee. That’s changing—partly because of cafés like Pergamino showing Colombians (and visitors) what their country’s coffee can actually taste like.
The family has also built a significant export business. Their green beans end up at respected roasters worldwide: Onyx Coffee Lab in the US, Melbourne Coffee Merchants in Australia, and dozens of others. If you’ve had exceptional Colombian coffee at a specialty roaster in your home city, there’s a decent chance Pergamino had something to do with it.
But the cafés remain the heart of the operation. They’re where the family gets to tell the full story—farm to cup, generation to generation, chaos to community. Each location is a small proof that keeping the best beans in Colombia wasn’t just possible. It was worth fighting for.
Locations (as of late 2025):
Pergamino Via Primavera: Cra. 37 #8A-37, El Poblado (the original)
Pergamino Calle 10B: Cl. 10b #36-38, El Poblado
Pergamino San Lucas: Cl. 16A Sur #30a-57, El Poblado
Pergamino Laureles: Cq 73 #34-65, Laureles
Pergamino CC Oviedo: Centro Comercial Oviedo, local 9
Pergamino Viva Envigado: Cra. 48 #32B Sur-139, local 355
Pergamino El Tesoro Bio Hotel: Cl. 2 Sur #25-115, El Poblado
Pergamino Airport: José María Córdova International (two locations)
What to order: Start with a flat white or pour-over of whatever single origin the barista recommends. If you’re feeling fancy, ask about any limited micro-lots from their allied producers.
Pro tip: Buy beans before you leave. They ship internationally, but grabbing a fresh bag from the source is hard to beat. The airport locations make this almost too easy.
Best for working: Calle 10B or Laureles
Best for atmosphere: Laureles
Best for people-watching: Via Primavera
Have you tried Pergamino? Which location is your favorite? Drop a comment below!