{"id":32106,"date":"2021-10-05T11:37:58","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T16:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panamaadvisoryinternationalgroup.com\/blog\/?p=32106"},"modified":"2021-10-05T11:37:58","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T16:37:58","slug":"visited-panama-try-worlds-expensive-coffee-now-can","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/panamaadvisoryinternationalgroup.com\/blog\/visited-panama-try-worlds-expensive-coffee-now-can\/","title":{"rendered":"I Visited Panama to Try the World’s Most Expensive Coffee \u2014 and Now You Can, Too"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Michael Janson isn’t in a hurry. At 76 years old, the coffee farmer has significantly slowed down with age, taking his time to step down from his four-wheeler and onto the ground below. But that new pace seems to fit him just fine. The fallen leaves crunch with each careful step he takes toward the overlook, just as the sun peeks through the mist. He stands in the sunshine looking over his\u00a0110-hectare farm<\/a>\u00a0in the mountainous region of Boquete, Panama, with the same beaming pride a father has for his children.<\/p>\n

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“The coffee has to be good because it’s the fruit of the land,” he says, adjusting his cap, his gray hair poking out from under the brim, all without breaking his mile-long gaze on his life’s work. “To have all the flavors and the variety, you have to know the land.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And know the land he does. As a second-generation farmer, Janson has tended to this patch of earth nearly since the day he was born, alongside his siblings, children, and now grandchildren, who are joining him in growing a high-end bean to bring people around the world a\u00a0better cup of coffee<\/a>, as well draw attention to Panama as a force in the industry. Their work \u2014 and the work of a few other dedicated families and indigenous communities\u00a0\u2014 can only be described as a caffeinated renaissance for the nation, which is coming into full bloom with Panama’s new\u00a0Coffee Circuit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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According to\u00a0Perfect Daily Grind<\/em><\/a>, Panamanians are serious about how much coffee they drink. As a population, the nation consumes about 20 million kilograms per year, or five kilograms per capita. This works out to about two kilograms per capita more than other coffee-producing nations like Brazil and Colombia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Though Panamanians drink a lot of coffee, they don’t grow much of their own. According to the\u00a0International Coffee Organization<\/a>, Brazil produces the most coffee in the world, growing five billion pounds per year. In comparison, Panama produces just 13 million pounds. But what it lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in quality, thanks to one very special varietal known as Geisha.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“It takes a lot of know-how,” Janson says of the Geisha bean. “We have an agriculture engineer just for this plant.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For the uninitiated, Geisha coffee is a bean originating from the Gori Gesha forest in Ethiopia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Chiriqui