Which Coffee Producing Regions Made Panama Famous?

Panama built its specialty reputation on low volume and high quality rather than a long growing history. Coffee first reached the country in 1742 by ship from Martinique, with the first recorded planting in 1780 near Portobelo. By the 1820s it had spread to other areas, and estates like Hacienda La Esmeralda and Hartmann Estate later became well known.

The annual Panama green bean competition pushed Geisha to worldwide attention, and Panama now has three core growing regions. Its highland conditions, including Boquete, give the washed Geisha a distinctive floral and citrus profile. Coffee is part of daily life in Panama, served from street stalls to high-end restaurants, and single-origin lots span a wide range of prices.

Although Panama is not the country with the longest coffee-growing history, it holds an irreplaceable position in the specialty coffee world. From coffee's first arrival on this land in the 18th century, to the rise of renowned estates such as Hacienda La Esmeralda and Hartmann Estate, and then to the Best of Panama green bean competition propelling Geisha to legendary status, Panama has carved out a specialty path of low volume and high quality. Front Street Coffee also places Panama prominently on its bean list, with multiple single-origin offerings spanning different price points to satisfy palates from beginner to advanced. This article will guide you through Panama's coffee history, its three core producing regions, the BOP competition, as well as the flavor characteristics of Geisha and Front Street's brewing suggestions for washed Boquete Geisha.

On Front Street's bean list, Panama firmly occupies the center of the blackboard, featuring several single-origin coffees—some available for just a few dozen yuan, while others are priced at several hundred. This makes many first-time visitors quite curious, frequently asking the baristas about the characteristics of each bean. To address these questions, Front Street today will take you into this world-famous coffee-producing country and share some coffee stories from the other side of the globe.

The History of Panama Coffee

Compared to other Central American countries, Panama's coffee-growing history is not particularly long, yet its fame is astonishing—almost everyone in the specialty coffee circle knows of it. Today, coffee has long been integrated into Panamanians' daily diet; from street-side stalls to high-end restaurants, what you drink is coffee produced in their own country.

According to historical records, coffee first arrived in Panama in 1742. At that time, a ship from the French Caribbean island of Martinique arrived at Portobelo via Cartagena (which does not produce coffee), and a barrel of coffee beans was registered on the cargo manifest. However, the first recorded coffee planting within Panama's territory would not come until 1780. Settler Pedro Antonio de Ayala attempted to grow coffee in Portobelo between 1780 and the 1790s, but he soon discovered that local conditions were not suitable for coffee cultivation.

It was not until the 1820s that coffee gradually spread to other regions of Panama, successfully replacing chocolate as the main beverage and competing with tea, which had taken root in Europe.

Geographically, Panama is located in Central America, flanked by quality coffee-producing countries on both sides—Costa Rica to the west and Colombia to the east—making its origins akin to being born with a silver spoon. After checking the map, Front Street found that Panama is sandwiched between two ocean currents; the air masses from the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean converge in the Boquete Valley above 6,500 feet, creating a unique and variable microclimate. Not only are temperature and humidity suitable, but combined with the effects of volcanic soil, coffee cherries grown here more easily develop rich and diverse aromatic characteristics.

It is well known that the Panama Canal was built by the United States and was independently controlled by the U.S. for a period after completion. It was precisely the excavation of this canal that brought a large number of American elites southward in the late 20th century—partly for work demands and partly in search of business opportunities. Many of Panama's renowned coffee estates originated from these elites; for example, the owner of Hacienda La Esmeralda was originally a banker, and the owner of Hartmann Estate was previously an engineer. These elites adhered to standardized and refined principles when managing their estates—whether allocating coffee trees by plot altitude to classify bean grades, or hand-picking and meticulous processing—all were important factors in making Panama coffee world-famous.

Panama Coffee Producing Regions

Panama's coffee planting area is approximately over 20,000 hectares, of which nearly 16,000 hectares are Arabica varieties. The country's main coffee-growing areas are concentrated in Chiriquí Province in the west near the Costa Rican border, home to three famous producing regions: Boquete, Volcán, and Renacimiento. These three areas are adjacent to one another, all situated on the Central American ridge, near the majestic but not very active Barú Volcano, which has a maximum elevation of 3,475 meters. Thanks to the diverse climate and fertile volcanic soil, Chiriquí has also become a province with enormous agricultural and livestock potential; various agricultural and husbandry activities such as thoroughbred breeding and flower cultivation are developed here, with coffee, cherry, and banana plantations being particularly important. Below, Front Street continues to introduce these three main producing regions.

The cool and picturesque Boquete Valley is the cradle of Panama's coffee industry. In the late 19th century, a large number of European immigrants arrived here, mainly Swiss, Yugoslavs, Swedes, and Germans. They discovered that the nearby region (Panama belonged to Colombia before 1903) had excellent coffee-growing results, so they decided to devote themselves to coffee bean production. Currently, the Boquete area has approximately 50 to 75 coffee farms and about 15 coffee processing plants.

Boquete has a land area of 514 square kilometers and a population of about 15,000. The main crops are coffee, flowers, citrus fruits, strawberries, and various vegetables. Most coffee plantations in the area are located at around 1,600 meters above sea level. In fact, these lands are all composed of nutrient-rich volcanic soil, ensuring that coffee trees receive adequate nutrition. The climate is cool and slightly dry, and every day, especially in summer, a thin mist formed by imperceptible drizzle envelops each coffee plantation. This mixed wind carrying rainwater is precisely why Boquete coffee cherries ripen slowly, and the resulting coffee has medium to high acidity.

Since Chiriquí Province is dominated by coffee cultivation, coffee culture is deeply rooted in people's hearts. According to data from Panama's Ministry of Agricultural Development, the country has over 8,000 coffee growers, almost all of whom own farms of less than 30 hectares. Panama's coffee harvest season runs from September to December. During this period, indigenous groups known as the Gnobe Bugle—locally commonly called Guaymí—can be seen everywhere in the coffee plantations. They come during harvest season to help pick coffee cherries. Due to their strong picking skills and professional knowledge, their labor costs are also higher than others. In addition, the Guaymí indigenous people preserve their traditional culture, making and wearing colorful beaded necklaces and clothing, as well as baskets used for picking. Standing among the coffee bushes, they become a beautiful scene.

Before 1989, Panama's coffee prices were always controlled by the International Coffee Agreement. For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, Panama also exported green coffee beans to Western European countries on a small scale. However, in that year, the agreement collapsed, international green bean prices plummeted, and coffee bean prices fell from $1.20 per pound to as low as $0.74 per pound.

In the early 1990s, as commercial coffee bean prices fell, Panama turned its attention to the emerging specialty coffee market. In 1996, seven local coffee estate owners in Panama jointly founded the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama. They were Ricardo Koyner, Price Peterson, Jaime Tedman, Marcos Moreno, Tony Vasquez, Hans Collins, Josue Ruiz, Wilford Lamastus, Francisco Serricin, and Ratibor Hartmann, and they held the first coffee green bean competition and online green bean auction. The purpose was to promote high-quality Panama coffee by organizing the country's small coffee growers together.

Best of Panama BOP

This is the world's earliest-established coffee green bean competition, and it can also be described as a coffee bean auction—Best of Panama. Estate owners submit their finest locally produced coffee lots, the highest quality and highest-scoring ones are selected, and then according to their evaluation scores, buyers from around the world bid, with the highest bidder winning. In recent years, the winning bids for BOP champion beans have reached thousands of dollars, making it a focal event in the coffee industry.

Unlike major producing countries such as Brazil and Vietnam, Panama follows a coffee path of low volume and high-end specialization. In the 1990s, facing a low period in Panama's coffee industry and a global green bean price crisis, coffee people found it difficult to sustain their operations. So the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama (SCAP) organized local farm owners to unite and held the first Best of Panama coffee green bean competition in 1996, selling specialty coffee beans through bidding. This greatly transformed Panama's coffee industry and also influenced the direction of the world's specialty coffee market.

Because Geisha scores much higher than other varieties in the competition, submitted green coffee beans are currently divided into Geisha and non-Geisha groups, then further divided by processing method into natural and washed groups, and then blind-tasted and scored by various judges. The coffee bean with the highest final average score is that year's Best of Panama. In 2022, Guarumo Estate's Geisha won first place in the natural Geisha group with an ultra-high average score of 95.96, while the washed group champion was taken by Aurora Estate's Geisha with an average score of 96.15.

The Flavor Characteristics of Panama Geisha

Front Street Coffee believes that as the place where Geisha rose to fame, Panama's Geisha coffee produced with mature cultivation techniques and processing methods remains a guarantee of industry reputation. Therefore, Front Street has launched a Boquete region Geisha coffee, using washed processing, hoping to let everyone taste the classic Geisha flavor.

Washed processing involves first putting selected coffee cherries into a depulper to initially remove their skin and pulp; placing the green coffee beans with residual pulp and mucilage into water to ferment for about 24 hours; after fermentation, washing the green coffee beans with parchment in a flowing water channel to remove the pulp and mucilage; after washing, drying the coffee beans in the sun or using a dryer to reduce the moisture content to about 12%. Finally, removing the parchment from the green coffee beans.

As one of the most traditional green bean processing methods, washed processing not only makes coffee production quality more stable but also gives Geisha a flavor profile with higher cleanliness and fresher flavors. After roasting, Front Street experienced Geisha's elegant white floral notes, elevated citrus and lemon acidity, with a slight green tea charm, like drinking a cup of gentle Tieguanyin tea. How should Geisha coffee with such a rich flavor be brewed so as not to waste it?

Geisha coffee's flavor is world-renowned for its rich floral aromas and complex fruit tones. Front Street's roaster hopes to preserve more of Geisha's high-quality acidity, so a medium-light roast is chosen (slight adjustments are made for different lots). This roast level does not change much of the high hardness of high-altitude beans, so brewing requires increasing the extraction rate to present fuller flavor layers, making it suitable for fine grinding and high-temperature water.

To improve Geisha coffee's extraction rate, avoid over-extraction, and simultaneously highlight the sweet and sour flavor layers, Front Street Coffee's baristas use the V60 dripper. The V60's body has spiral ribs connecting the top and bottom and a large central hole that accelerates water flow, while the spiral-shaped vent design lengthens the water flow path, increasing the contact time between coffee grounds and hot water. Each stream of water converges along the grooves toward the center of the dripper, concentrating the pressure on the coffee grounds and resulting in a coffee with richer layers.

Below, Front Street demonstrates the brewing steps for the store's Esmeralda Red Label Natural Geisha. You can refer to and compare it with your own brewing approach.

The pour-over parameters for Red Label Geisha coffee are:

Dripper: V60

Water temperature: 91-92°C

Coffee dose: 15g

Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15

Grind size: fine granulated sugar (80% passing through a No. 20 sieve)

Three-stage extraction: First, pour 15 grams of coffee grounds into the dripper and tare the weight. For the first stage, pour 30g of water for a 30-second bloom, starting the timer simultaneously. Use a slow, small stream from the center point, spiraling outward, making sure to saturate the entire coffee bed. For the second stage, use a slightly larger stream to pour 120g of water, with the aim of lifting the entire coffee bed. The water stream should be poured vertically and evenly. At this point, the scale shows 150g, and pouring should be completed in about 55 seconds.

When the liquid level drops to the halfway point, begin the third stage using a slow, small stream in a small spiral to pour 90 grams. Try to control the stream from spiraling too widely, as this can easily disturb the coffee bed and cause under-extraction. The total water poured is 240 grams, and the drip completion time is about 2 minutes 10 seconds. After removing the dripper, swirl the coffee in the server to mix evenly and it's ready to taste.

The pour-over Panama Washed Boquete Geisha coffee has clear citrus, lemon, and bergamot acidity, a creamy smooth mouthfeel when swallowing, and a finish of green tea and honey sweetness.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.