How Panamanian geisha rose to fame in specialty coffee

Coffee reached Panama in 1742 as a barrel of beans on a ship's cargo list, though cultivation on Panamanian soil was not recorded until 1780, when settler Pedro Antonio de Ayarza tried growing it near Portobelo. Today Panama is a small but influential origin, and Boquete is its core producing region.

Boquete's high altitude, volcanic soil, and cool nights suit slow cherry maturation. The annual green bean competition later brought international attention to Panamanian geisha, whose jasmine, citrus, and tropical fruit notes reshaped expectations for central american coffee and pushed prices higher across the specialty market.

Although Panama is a small country, it occupies a pivotal position in the world of specialty coffee. On Front Street Coffee's bean list, Panamanian coffees range from a few dozen yuan to several hundred yuan, and the wide price span often makes first-time customers curious. This article will take you into this Central American coffee-producing country, tracing the historical thread of its coffee cultivation, analyzing the terroir conditions of core producing regions such as Boquete, reviewing the origins and influence of the Best of Panama green bean competition, and taking a deep dive into the flavor characteristics of Geisha coffee and Front Street's washed Boquete Geisha brewing method, so you can understand the full picture of Panamanian coffee at once.

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On Front Street's bean list, Panama firmly holds the C position on the blackboard, covering multiple single-origin coffees, with options available for just a few dozen yuan as well as high-end beans priced at several hundred yuan, which often prompts curious questions from first-time visitors who want to know what exactly makes each bean different. To help everyone resolve these doubts, Front Street today will take you closer to this world-famous coffee origin, and also chat about a coffee story that happened in another hemisphere.

The History of Panamanian Coffee

Among the countries of Central America, Panama did not start growing coffee particularly early, but its fame is astonishing, and almost no one in the specialty coffee circle has not heard of it. Today, coffee has long been integrated into the daily diet of Panamanians; whether at a small roadside inn or a high-end restaurant, you can drink coffee produced in the country.

According to documentary records, coffee was first introduced to Panama in 1742. At that time, a ship departing from Martinique in the French Caribbean stopped at Cartagena, which did not produce coffee, and then arrived at Portobelo, where a barrel of coffee beans was registered on the cargo list. However, the actual beginning of coffee cultivation on Panamanian territory was not recorded until 1780. Settler Pedro Antonio de Ayarza attempted to grow coffee in Portobelo between 1780 and the 1790s, but he soon discovered that this place was not very suitable for coffee cultivation. It was only in the 1820s that coffee cultivation gradually spread to other parts of Panama, and it successfully replaced chocolate as the main beverage, competing with tea, which had taken root in Europe.

From a geographical perspective, Panama is located in Central America, bordered on the left and right by Costa Rica and Colombia, both high-quality coffee-producing countries, so its coffee path can be said to have been born with a silver spoon. After checking the map, Front Street found that Panama is sandwiched between two ocean currents; the airflows of the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean converge in the Boquete Valley at elevations above 6,500 feet, creating a unique and changeable microclimate with just the right temperature and humidity. Combined with the effect of volcanic soil, this makes it easier for coffee cherries grown here to develop rich and diverse aromatic characteristics.

As is well known, the Panama Canal was built by the United States, and after completion it was once controlled independently by the United States for a period. It was precisely the excavation of this canal that brought a large number of American elites southward at the end of the 20th century, partly out of work needs and partly to seek business opportunities. Many well-known coffee estates in Panama came from the hands of these elites. For example, the owner of Hacienda La Esmeralda originally worked in banking, while the owner of Hartmann Estate came from an engineering background. When managing coffee estates, these elites adhered to the principles of standardization and refinement. Whether it was allocating coffee tree planting by plot elevation to classify bean grades, or manual picking and refined processing, these were key factors that enabled Panamanian coffee to become world-famous.

Panamanian Coffee Producing Regions

Panama's coffee planting area is about more than 20,000 hectares, of which nearly more than 16,000 hectares are planted with Arabica varieties. The country's main coffee-growing areas are concentrated in Chiriquí Province in the west near the Costa Rican border, where there are three well-known producing regions: Boquete, Volcán, and Renacimiento. These three places are adjacent to one another, located together on the Central American ridge, close to the majestic but not frequently active Barú Volcano, with a maximum elevation of 3,475 meters. Thanks to the diverse climate and fertile volcanic soil, Chiriquí Province also has enormous potential for agricultural and livestock production, with various agricultural and animal husbandry activities developing here, such as thoroughbred horse breeding, flower cultivation, and especially important coffee, cherry, and banana plantations. Next, Front Street will continue to introduce these three main producing regions.

The cool and scenic Boquete Valley can be called the cradle of Panama's coffee industry. At the end of the 19th century, a large number of European immigrants came here, mainly Swiss, Yugoslavs, Swedes, and Germans. They found that coffee cultivation in nearby areas (Panama belonged to Colombia before 1903) achieved excellent results, so they decided to devote themselves to coffee bean production. At present, the Boquete region has about 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 more than 15,000, mainly growing coffee, flowers, citrus fruits, strawberries, and various vegetables. Most coffee plantations in the area are located at an elevation of about 1,600 meters. In fact, these lands are all composed of nutrient-rich volcanic soil, providing ample nutrition for coffee trees. The climate is cool and slightly dry, and every day, especially in summer, an almost imperceptible drizzle-like mist covers every coffee plantation. These mixed winds carrying rainwater are precisely the reason why Boquete coffee cherries mature slowly, and the coffee produced thereby has a medium to high acidity profile.

Because Chiriquí Province is mainly focused on coffee cultivation, coffee culture is deeply rooted in the local area. According to data from Panama's Ministry of Agricultural Development, the country has more than 8,000 coffee growers, almost all of whom own farms of less than 30 hectares. Panama's coffee harvest period is from September to December. During this time, indigenous groups known as the Gnobe Bugle, usually called Guaymíes by locals, can be seen everywhere in the coffee plantations. They come during the harvest season to help pick coffee beans. Because of their strong picking techniques and professional knowledge, their labor costs are also higher than others. In addition, the Guaymíes indigenous people still preserve traditional culture, making and wearing necklaces and clothing strung with colorful beads, and the baskets they use for picking are also distinctive, forming a beautiful scenery when standing in the coffee groves.

Before 1989, Panamanian coffee prices had long been controlled by the International Coffee Agreement, and for most of the 19th and 20th centuries, Panama also continuously exported green coffee beans on a small scale to Western European countries. However, in 1989, the agreement collapsed, and international green bean prices suffered a sharp decline crisis, with coffee bean prices falling from US$1.20 per pound to as low as US$0.74 per pound.

In the early 1990s, as commercial coffee bean prices declined, Panama turned its attention to the emerging specialty coffee market. In 1996, seven local coffee estate owners in Panama jointly established the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama (SCAP). They were Ricardo Koyner, Price Peterson, Jaime Tedman, Marcos Moreno, Tony Vasquez, Hans Collins, Josue Ruiz, Wilford Lamastus, Francisco Serricin, Ratibor Hartmann. They also held the first green coffee competition and an online green coffee auction, with the aim of promoting high-quality Panamanian coffee by organizing small coffee growers nationwide.

Best of Panama BOP

This is the earliest green coffee competition established in the world, and it can also be described as an "auction" for coffee beans—Best of Panama. Estate owners submit high-quality coffee lots produced locally, the best-quality and highest-scoring ones are selected, and then according to the evaluation scores, global buyers bid for them, with the highest bidder winning. In recent years, the bidding price for BOP champion beans has reached as high as thousands of US dollars, becoming 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 point 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 farmers to unite and held the first Best of Panama green coffee competition in 1996, selling specialty coffee beans through bidding. This also greatly changed Panama's coffee industry and at the same time influenced the direction of the world specialty coffee market.

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

The Flavor Characteristics of Panamanian Geisha

FrontStreet Coffee believes that Panama, as the place where Geisha became famous, still produces Geisha coffee with mature cultivation techniques and processing methods that remains a guarantee of reputation in the industry. Therefore, Front Street has launched a Boquete producing-region Geisha coffee, using washed processing, hoping to let everyone taste the classic Geisha flavor.

Washed processing first involves putting selected coffee cherries into a depulper to initially remove the 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 with a dryer to reduce the moisture content to about 12%. Finally, the parchment of the green coffee beans is removed.

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 cleaner profile with fresher flavors. After roasting, Front Street perceived Geisha's elegant white floral aroma, rising citrus and lemon acidity, with a slight green tea charm, like drinking a cup of soft Tieguanyin tea. How should such a rich Geisha coffee be brewed so as not to waste it?

Geisha coffee's flavor is famous worldwide for its rich floral aroma and complex fruit profile. Front Street's roaster hopes to retain more of Geisha's high-quality acidity, so a medium-light roast is chosen (slight adjustments are made for different lots). Under this roast level, the high hardness of high-altitude beans is not changed much, so brewing requires increasing a certain extraction rate to present a fuller flavor hierarchy, making it suitable for fine grinding and high-temperature hot water.

In order to improve the extraction rate of Geisha coffee, avoid over-extraction, and at the same time highlight the sweet-and-sour flavor layers, FrontStreet Coffee's baristas use a V60 dripper. The V60 dripper body has guide ribs connecting the top and bottom and a large central hole, which speeds up the flow of water, while the spiral-shaped vent groove 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 extracting coffee with a richer sense of layering.

Next, Front Street will demonstrate the brewing steps for the in-store Emerald Red Label natural Geisha, which everyone can use for reference and compare with their 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 size (sieve to 80% with a No. 20 sieve bowl)

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, and start timing at the same time. Inject with a small stream at the center point and begin spiraling outward, taking care to wet 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 column should be poured vertically and evenly. At this point the scale shows 150g, and it should be finished in about 55 seconds.

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

The pour-over Panamanian washed Boquete Geisha coffee has a clear acidity of citrus, lemon, and bergamot, with a creamy smooth mouthfeel when swallowed, and a sweet finish of green tea and honey.

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