During my layover at El Dorado International Airport in Bogota I found some great coffee that helped me through the middle of the night.
Best Coffee In Bogota Airport (BOG)
My plane landed before 3:00 am and the lounge did not open until 5:00 am, which left a gap of more than two hours. What better way to fill it than by drinking coffee?
There are more institutional coffee shops at BOG. For example, Dunkin Donuts was absolutely hopping at 4:00 am. But I avoid those places.
Instead, I found a little place in Terminal 1 called Cafe Gourmet. Not a fancy name, to be sure, but this little shop had a couple of nice coffee machines and some regional coffee that looked promising.
A friendly barista made my cappuccino (¡Sin azúcar, por favor!).
It was nicely made and tasted great:
So nice, in fact, I ordered a second:
…and considered taking some coffee to go:
As I sat in a gate area enjoying my coffee and watching dozens of people waiting in line at Dunkin Donuts, I felt bad for those travelers who flock to chain coffee at the expense of something much better.
But now you know where to go. I highly recommend Cafe Gourmet and remain thankful that it was open at 3:00 am when most everything else was closed.
@Matthew, when you wrote, that you considered bringing coffee back home with you.
That reminded me of a story, I was in Jamaica and decided to bring some Blue Mountain coffee home with me.
I of course declared it on my customs form and figured that would be that. Well when the CBP officer asked what food I had and I responded coffee, he looked up at me, then scribbled something on the paper and sent me on my way.
When I handed over the customs form before exiting the baggage hall a CBP Officer looked at my form and took me into a different area where he started searching my bag.
He swabbed a whole bunch of things, searched my bag thoroughly, separating the bag of coffee from the rest of my belongings. He carefully inspected the bag from all angles, swabbed it and then said that he was going to have to open it.
I said do whatever it takes, he opens the bag spills out the coffee and carefully goes through it. He then swabbed a bunch of the beans and tested those for I am assuming drugs.
He then came back, told me to pack my bags up and follow him. We then went into a private room where another Officer joined him and said that they wanted to do a pat search, I again said do whatever it takes and he pat searched me.
After that, he thanked me for my patience and escorted me to the exit, I asked what triggered the thorough search and the CBP Officer said that he could not say, but that he found nothing on me and I had nothing to worry about.
About six months later, I watched a documentary about the Customs and Border Protection and lo and behold there was a flight from Jamaica and guess what a bag of coffee triggered a thorough search.
In the documentary they explained that in Jamaica innocent looking bags of coffee are carefully opened, drugs are hidden inside and then sealed back up to try and fool US CBP.
I then understood why I was searched so thoroughly months earlier.
Very interesting.
When you visit Bogota again, I strongly recommend visiting Amor Perfecto, the roaster of 2 of the coffee bags in the pic. They have a cafe as well and it’s one of the best I’ve had.