Resumen
This article examines the origin, evolution, consolidation and loss of buoyancy in Colombia?s coffee sector. Each of these stages saw institutional accompaniment, basically in the form of the National Federation of Coffee Growers (Federación Nacional de Cafeteros), which emerged as an agreement between the two finest coffee producing areas in the country: the east, comprising Norte de Santander, Santander, Cundinamarca and eastern Tolima; and the west, made up of southern Antioquia, Viejo Caldas, and western Tolima. This study seeks to review and understand the beginnings of coffee production in these areas ?the regions where coffee expansion started in Colombia? and the differences between them. It also attempts to determine the importance of the Federation in the development of this sector, as well as its role throughout the 20th century (after 1930), the period in which Colombian coffee made its most important advances