Ahhh, one of the reasons I really love it here is the excellent coffee grown here in Boquete and the region.  For Mother’s day we celebrated at my friend’s place where Rich Lipner and his wife Dee raise excellent coffee and Rich makes the best wood fired oven roasted pizza I have ever tasted.  So before I get into the  recent outcome of the Best of Panama Coffees for this year, let me show you around his place.

His little plantation house is home to the roasting and toasting that goes on here and we were in a treat for that and more.

The roaster he uses is  a beautiful piece of equipment.

And his pizza oven just got added to my list of things to put in the back yard of my new home that I am building.

The views that afternoon were spectacular also as the weather moved through the mountains.  The coffee was in full bloom and this was indeed a happy time.  Now we just need more rain!!

For a slideshow of that afternoon click here–

If you want to see the whole story that I did about his place read

Coffee in the Clouds

Now onto the Best of Panama cupping, first in the words of one of the judges

I miss the interior of the old David airport, it was like a step back in time!  You would arrive and walk down the tarmac to the arrivals hall, only a small desk behind a glass screen, about forty square meters when combined with the baggage area.  Customs was a trestle table.  I could imagine a time of less bureaucratic oversight.  It really felt like you had travelled to origin.

But this year as I walk through the new airport there are security devices being installed and air-conditioning ducts hang from the roof.  The trestle table has gone: progress.

Boquete, in mountainous Western Panama to the north of David, is becoming fashionable, with a new double lane highway and yet more development.  I am here to protect Boquete as a coffee region.  I am judging in the Best of Panama comp in which Boquete and the neighbouring region of Volcan are well-represented.  The area is becoming equally well-known for retirees and condominium developments- however we are hoping the attention generated around the competition will help reverse the trend of coffee farms being sold to developers.  Boquete and Volcan produce stunning coffee, the volcanic soil coupled with consistent cloud cover and specific climatic conditions produce, arguably, the best coffee in the world.

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Tao Suzuki, a Japanese cupper, is situated on a table next to me tasting the coffees selected to make it through to the finals.  A slight competitive streak is highlighted with his foam cup art titled “Foolish Australian”.  The coffees are highly prized and there definitely is a sense of rivalry.

We cup over eighty coffees during the next three days.  The cuppings are broken down into Geishas, Standards, and natural processed coffees.

The Geishas are the darlings of the specialty coffee scene, a long-lost varietal that explodes with bergamot and citrus in the cup.  Standards are the Caturra and similar washed coffees that Boquete has traditionally grown, which contrast with the newer and somewhat controversial naturals that are becoming more popular in the region.

We score and rank coffees over the next few days, slurping and spitting our way through to finally rate the blind samples.  The highest scores at 91 points on a scale of 100.  Pretty impressive, and a great pleasure to return to Panama to be on the judging panel.  An equal pleasure is arriving home to taste our lots of Boquete’s Esmeralda “León” Geisha in the cafe.

Now about the competition from an article in the Panama Guide

Special Coffee From Panama Conquers The Global Market And Demanding Palates

Known around the world for satisfying the most demanding palates, special coffees from Panama have earned a place in the international market with prices matching their quality and meeting the criteria of the most expert tasters.

About 30 members of the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama (SCAP) grow and export this precious product, and one of its finest varieties, the Geisha, has reached the cost of $374 per kg, the highest price in the international market.

Each year, producers make an international coffee-tasting event called “The Best of Panama”, a competition in which judges evaluate international specialty coffee lots and they award the highest score to the winners, who then participate in a global online auction with buyers from the U.S., Europe, Japan and Taiwan.

On the high mountainous areas of the province of Chiriqui, located on the border with Costa Rica, around 400 miles to the west of Panama City, there are over 40 farms in charge of growing, besides Geisha coffee, other varieties of the finest Panamanian coffees, such as Pacamara, Catuai, Caturra, Bourbon or Typica.

Geisha coffee is the world’s most recognized and the best priced coffee among the experts for its citrical flavor and floral and jasmine aroma, as well as its balanced acidity.

THE BEGINNING

The Geisha variety was discovered in Abyssinia in southwest Ethiopia, in 1931, and was imported into Panama from Costa Rica in 1963, according to the SCAP, an association created in 1996.

The president of the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama, Plinio Ruiz Jr. said this variety was brought to the country because its leaves are resistant to rust.

Rust is a coffee pest caused by the fungus Hemileia vastatrix, which causes premature leaf fall of coffee and undermines its productive capacity, unable to perform photosynthesis.

The SCAP specifies that the main criteria at the time of choosing which variety should be grown are the grain quality, the production capacity and resistance to weather and pests.

Ruiz said through the introduction of the Geisha in the highlands of Boquete, in Chiriqui, one of the six mountainous areas of the province where fine coffees are grown, it was discovered that “the taste of this coffee was extraordinary.”

“This is how it all began, then, electronic auctions were introduced in 2004 all around the world, and this is when the variety of Geisha as a special coffee was discovered, obtaining the highest price in the market,” said Ruiz.

SCAP’s President highlighted that the total commercial coffee production in Panama reaches 28 million pounds (bags of 46 kg), in which special coffee represents 2% of this production.

However, he said the specialty coffee produce “a whole market noise” because their lots reach “exorbitant prices, ridiculously high, compared to commercial coffees”.

MARKETS

Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, United States, France, Holland, Germany and the Nordic countries such as Finland and Sweden are the markets that pay the highest prices for coffee from Panama.

However, Ruiz said countries in the Far East buy the most because they have a palate adapted to identify very fine flavors from plants and can identify “very easily” high quality drinks such as specialty coffee.

In that regard, he assured the most requested coffee is the Geisha, out of the special coffees, which has reached the price of $374 per kg.

This week, the lots used to grow the Ironman coffee (washed Geisha coffee), Esmeralda Especial (Natural) and Pacamara Don Julian (traditional washed coffee) got the first place in its category at the XVII International Specialty Coffee Tasting Event, “The Best of Panama.”

Judges from the Netherlands, Taiwan, United States, Japan and South Korea chose among 46 lots of the best coffee in Panama, in a tasting that lasted several days and finally concluded on Wednesday in Boquete.

In the Geisha category, Ironman lot owned by the coffee producer, athlete and manager of the Panama Stock Exchange, Roberto Brenes, obtained the highest score with 91.7031 points.

The director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), Ric Rhinehart, said the quality of Panama’s coffee is higher every year and separating Geishas from other coffees “helps maintain the quality of the other varieties of coffee.”

After this tasting event, samples are sent from the lots to be auctioned online on June 11 to the potential buyers who sign up for the auction, said Ruiz. (Prensa)