Panama Illeta Estate SHB Caturra Premium Coffee Beans: Grading, Pricing, Raw Beans and Roast Levels

Panama Coffee Growing Regions

Panama coffee is primarily grown in the following regions:

Boquete Region: This area produces coffee in large quantities with excellent quality, making it the most productive and highest-quality coffee-producing region in Panama.

Volcán Region: The coffee produced here is characterized by its mild and balanced flavor. It has gradually gained attention from international experts and coffee enthusiasts and is expected to soon rival the Boquete region.

Santa Clara Region: Fertile coffee farms here are irrigated and nourished by the clear river water from the Chorerra Waterfall, and thanks to its proximity to the Panama Canal, fresh and pure Panamanian coffee can be conveniently transported to all parts of the world.

Piedra de Candela Region: This region is considered to have the most potential for developing large-scale, high-quality specialty coffee.

Coffee Characteristics

This batch of coffee possesses the purest original flavor. Because the Hacienda Eleta SHB washed coffee is harvested from high-altitude Caturra coffee beans, it carries strong fruity and floral notes. Flavor characteristics: creamy bread, apricot kernel sweetness, cane sugar sweetness, rounded acidity, complex aroma, balanced sweet and sour, pleasant mouthfeel.

Caturra Variety

Caturra is a natural variation of the Arabica Bourbon variety, discovered in Brazil in 1937. Its plant is not as tall as Bourbon but rather more compact. Due to its Bourbon heritage, it has relatively weak disease resistance, but its yield is higher than Bourbon. Although discovered in Brazil, Caturra is not suitable for growing there, so it was not cultivated on a large scale in Brazil. Instead, it became widely popular in Central and South America, with countries like Colombia, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua cultivating it extensively.

Compared to these botanical characteristics, you might be more concerned about Caturra's flavor. The higher the altitude where Caturra is grown, the better the quality, but the corresponding yield is lower. When lightly roasted, Caturra has noticeable acidic aromas and overall brightness. With proper processing, the sweetness can perform exceptionally well, but the coffee body is relatively lower compared to Bourbon, and the cleanliness of the mouthfeel is somewhat lacking.

Typically, Caturra produces red cherries, but in extremely rare regions there are yellow Caturra varieties. For example, Hawaii grows very small quantities of yellow Caturra.

Coffee Grading Systems

Coffee grading systems worldwide are not unified. Each coffee-producing country has its own grading system and grading names, so you might see the following text on coffee labels: "SHB," "AA+," "Supremo," "Extra-Fancy," "Peaberries/small beans," and so on. These are coffee bean grading names. Sometimes, roasted coffee beans sold on the market will indicate the grade of a single-origin coffee. The more detailed the coffee grading indication, usually the better the coffee quality. However, general coffee typically does not display this information.

Brewing Instructions

Hand-poured Panama Hacienda Eleta. 15g of coffee grounds, medium grind (using Fuji's serrated burr grinder setting 4), V60 dripper, water temperature 88-89°C. First pour 30g of water and bloom for 27 seconds. Pour to 105g and stop pouring. Wait until the water level in the coffee bed drops to halfway, then continue pouring slowly until reaching 225g. Avoid the tail end. Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, extraction time 2:00.

Product Information

Manufacturer: FrontStreet Coffee
Ingredients: House-roasted coffee
Shelf life: 30 days
Net weight: 227g
Packaging: Bulk
Flavor profile: Neutral
Coffee bean state: Roasted coffee beans
Sugar content: Sugar-free
Origin: Panama
Coffee type: Other

Coffee Details

Panama MC Santa Clara Eleta SHB Washed

Country: Panama
Grade: SHB
Region: Santa Clara
Altitude: Average 1600 meters
Processing method: Washed

Hacienda Eleta (Café de Eleta) is located in a small area of the Santa Clara region, one kilometer from the Costa Rican border, near La Amistad International Park, a major primary forest reserve that belongs to the Central American ecological habitat. Hacienda Eleta began acquiring land in the 1970s, covering an area of about 130 hectares. Initially it cultivated vegetables and operated livestock farming. In 1995 it started growing coffee and was named Café de Eleta S.A. It continued to expand its land until today, reaching 420 hectares, making it one of Panama's large-scale coffee plantations and one of the best-known Panama coffees. Thanks to abundant water resources, it has a private 530KW hydroelectric power plant. Besides being self-sufficient in electricity, excess power is sold to Distribución de Electricidad Chiriquí S.A. and connected to the grid.

Variety: Caturra
Estate: Hacienda Eleta
Flavor notes: Creamy bread, apricot kernel sweetness, rounded acidity

Panama Coffee's Rise to Prominence

Panama has been the hottest country in Central America for the past 5-6 years, mainly because the Peterson family's Panama Hacienda La Esmeralda cultivated a coffee tree variety called Geisha that drove coffee enthusiasts wild, and Geisha was consequently promoted as the world's top coffee bean. For this reason, the Panama Coffee Best of Panama auction competition is independent from the Central and South American cupping competitions, and Panama was also the earliest auction country, holding its auction annually in mid-May. Panama coffee is impressive not only in the Geisha variety but also in its continuous innovation in mid-tier green bean processing. Not only are there traditional washed processing methods, but also the honey processing methods most popular in neighboring Costa Rica. Additionally, as naturally processed coffee gradually takes shape in Central America, Panama also produces small quantities, attracting the attention of coffee professionals worldwide.

Panama Coffee History

Coffee was introduced to Panama in 1780, when Europeans brought the first Typica tree varieties. Afterwards, this mysterious and extraordinary beverage conquered the senses of Panamanians, and locals began to cultivate it widely. Panama coffee is very smooth, with full-bodied beans that are light in weight, and has perfectly balanced acidity. Its high-quality coffee beans feature pure and distinctive flavors. Due to its widespread popularity, most of Panama's premium coffee beans are exported to France and Finland.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Hacienda Eleta's Caturra is prized for its creamy bread, apricot kernel, and cane sugar sweetness with rounded acidity, a balance that Brazilian coffee shares. The FrontStreet Brazil Cerrado Red Bourbon is a pulped natural lot with a medium roast, showing creamy peanut, toasted bread, caramel, and hazelnut aromas and a rounded, low-acid cup with a faint bitterness. The FrontStreet Brazil Queen Farm, grown in Mogiana on red volcanic soil, brings the rarer Yellow Bourbon with a clean sugarcane sweetness plus fruit and chocolate notes. Brazilian coffee is also the base of FrontStreet's espresso blends, where its low-acid, balanced character supplies the chocolate and cream aromas and a gentle sweet-sour-bitterness that keeps extraction stable, whether you drink it as an Americano or with milk.