Is Panama Butterfly Coffee a Geisha Blend or Single Origin?

Panama Butterfly coffee beans come from the Boquete Baru Volcano region and are a washed blend of three varieties: Geisha, Caturra, and Catuai. They are not a single origin. Medium roasted and leaning light, the cup shows peach, nuts, honey, and green tea, combining panamanian geisha floral character with a lower price.

Boquete sits in Chiriqui Province near the Costa Rica border, where volcanic ash soil and microclimates support high-quality coffee. The area is also home to Hacienda La Esmeralda, Elida Estate, and Kotowa Duncan Estate. Blending Geisha with Caturra and Catuai keeps the floral aroma while holding cost down, which explains the bean's wide appeal.

Panama Butterfly coffee beans have attracted much attention for combining Geisha flavors with an affordable price. These beans come from the Boquete Baru Volcano region and are a blend of three varieties: Geisha, Caturra, and Catuai. After washed processing, they present notes of peach, nuts, honey, and green tea. Are they a blend or a single-origin coffee? Why can they have over 50% Geisha lineage while maintaining high cost-effectiveness? Front Street Coffee will guide you through Butterfly's estate background, variety composition, roasting approach, and pour-over recipe, and share cupping flavors and brewing details to help you more fully understand this Panamanian coffee that combines floral aromas and sweetness.

Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee): Panama Butterfly Coffee Beans

Country: Panama

【Region】: Boquete, Baru Volcano area

【Varieties】: Catuai, Caturra, Geisha

【Processing Method】: Washed

【Roast Level】: Medium (leaning light)

Flavor: Peach, nuts, honey, green tea

Region Introduction

In the Boquete region of Panama, there is a coffee bean with outstanding cost-effectiveness and a rather elegant name—Panama Butterfly. Panama is located in Central America, bordered by Costa Rica to the west and Colombia to the east. Most people who have encountered single-origin coffee know that Panama's fame in the industry is largely thanks to Hacienda La Esmeralda's Geisha. It can be said that this is a country that continuously refines coffee quality and frequently produces excellent beans.

Panama coffee became widely known because of Hacienda La Esmeralda's Geisha, and the region where Hacienda La Esmeralda is located is also quite famous—Boquete in Chiriqui Province. More precisely, Boquete is a town under Chiriqui Province, located near the border between Panama and Costa Rica, adjacent to the famous Baru Volcano. It has beautiful scenery, deep and fertile soil, and climate and soil conditions well suited to nurturing high-quality coffee.

The Boquete region is also home to many outstanding estates. In addition to the renowned Hacienda La Esmeralda, there are also Elida Estate, Kotowa Duncan Estate, and others, all producing high-quality specialty coffee. This is due not only to the superior ecological conditions of Panama's Boquete region, but also to the fertile volcanic ash soil of the Baru Volcano area.

Another key factor is that the microclimates found in the Boquete highlands of Panama are a precious resource that cannot be replicated for Boquete specialty coffee. Panama's east-to-west topography causes cold air currents to converge along the central mountain range above 6,500 feet, creating multiple microclimates in the Boquete area. Temperature and rainfall are both very suitable for plant growth, so the coffee trees here grow quite ideally.

Panama Butterfly coffee beans have more than 50% Geisha lineage and are composed of three varieties: Geisha, Caturra, and Catuai. They are grown in the Baru Volcano area of Boquete at an altitude of about 1,600 meters. The processing station uses meticulous washed processing. Panama's special local microclimate gives this area abundant rainfall and a noticeable temperature difference between day and night. Combined with the volcanic rock soil unique to volcanic areas, as well as careful harvesting and fine processing, this coffee performs remarkably well in body, acidity, and floral aroma.

(Honey is also produced locally, with wild butterflies surrounding the hills)

What is even more surprising is that, on top of excellent quality, its price is very approachable, making its cost-effectiveness especially outstanding. What makes these beans special is that they contain the Geisha variety, and therefore carry obvious Geisha flavors.

Is Butterfly a blend?

According to information reviewed by Front Street Coffee, due to historical reasons, the estate initially planted Geisha together with Caturra and Catuai coffee trees in order to pursue yield. Later, for ease of harvesting, the coffee farmers also separated the three varieties, but at export they directly mixed and processed the three varieties together to present the rich flavor they wanted to express.

All three varieties in Butterfly come from the same origin and the same region, so it is a single-origin coffee!

Like the famous Hacienda La Esmeralda, it is a bean from the Boquete region and contains 40% to 70% Geisha, with a flavor profile that also carries authentic Panamanian Geisha character. Most importantly, the price is very approachable.

Butterfly uses washed processing. The cleanliness and clear floral aroma of washed beans are its characteristics. Information provided by the green bean supplier shows that the beans have a moisture content of only 9.9%, so the roasting plan is to charge at a low temperature, then use high heat and a small airflow to accelerate dehydration; after the dehydration phase ends, open to medium airflow and medium heat so that the Maillard reaction time is not too rushed. Drop the beans when first crack is at its densest.

The roasting process is as follows:

Because of the special varietal nature of this 【Butterfly】, we use a medium-light roast to shape the final flavor direction of these beans, deciding to shorten the Maillard reaction time and follow a faster curve. Because the beans are dense and hard, we start with high heat for dehydration, then reduce heat before first crack to lower the rate of temperature rise as it enters first crack, preserving floral and other small-molecule aromatic compounds as much as possible and avoiding damage to the floral, white grape, caramel, honey, and black tea aromas unique to Geisha.

Charge with a roast batch size of 550g (full load).

Charge temperature: 200°C

First crack point: 184.5°C ±0.5°C @ 8:31 ±3 seconds

The next day, the results after 【cupping】 were as follows:

Wet aroma: Citrus , jasmine hints

Flavor: Peach, grape, caramel, honey

【How to Brew】

Suitable equipment: pour-over dripper, siphon, French press, cold drip brewer, siphon, drip bag

【Pour-over Record】

【Summary】

Pour-over Panama Butterfly , V60, recommended 15g coffee, 89-90°C water temperature

Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, EK43s grinder setting 10, V60 dripper.

First pour: Use 30g of water for a 28-30s bloom. Depending on the bloom condition and the size of the expansion, this will determine how long to pour with a fine stream. After blooming, the coffee grounds will basically still contain some air.

During the second pour, foam will be produced. The coarseness of the foam represents the amount of air in the coffee grounds. The amount of air in the coffee grounds determines whether the coffee grounds float on the water surface or settle at the bottom of the dripper. With more air, the coffee grounds float on the water surface, so a fine, gentle stream should be used to disturb the coffee grounds and allow the air inside the coffee grounds to escape.

Pour to 110g of water, stop at 140g, wait until the water level in the coffee bed drops to half before pouring again, then pour slowly until 225g of water. Discard the final 5g. Extraction time 2:00s. Front Street believes that this extraction method can bring out Butterfly's higher sweetness and soft fruity acidity. You can also make minor adjustments according to your preferred taste.

Flavor: Clean and transparent body, white grape and caramel aromas followed by honey, with a captivating high-mountain black tea aroma! High sweetness, medium acidity, and a rounded mouthfeel.

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