Panama Boquete featuring 70% Geisha Mariposa Premium Coffee Beans: Grading, Pricing, Raw Beans and Roasting

Cupping Notes

Fragrance (Dry Aroma)

Jasmine floral notes, citrus, tea aroma, honey

Aroma (Wet Aroma)

Berry fruits, floral notes, buttery aroma, vanilla, citrus

Flavor (Slurping)

A sweet, juice-like quality, delicate and non-aggressive acidity, excellent cleanliness, bergamot, honey, citrus, spices, floral notes, berry fruits, tea aroma and cherry, with a refined finish and a persistent aroma. A classic La Esmeralda Geisha profile.

Taste Description

Jasmine floral notes, citrus, tea aroma, honey, berry fruits, vanilla and bright acidity. This "Floral Butterfly" coffee, which contains Geisha variety, offers exceptional value as a specialty coffee bean.

Product Information

Manufacturer: FrontStreet Coffee | Shelf Life: 90 days | Net Weight: 227g | Packaging: Bulk coffee beans | Roast Level: Medium roast | Series: FrontStreet Coffee Roasting | Sugar Content: Sugar-free | Origin: Panama

Origin and Region

The Boquete region of Panama, in Chiriqui province on the border with Costa Rica, is renowned for producing the famous Geisha coffee and is world-famous for high-quality Arabica. The Tedman & MacIntyre Estate, at 4,000 feet altitude in the Boquete mountains, traces its origins to two of Panama's earliest coffee families: the Tedman and MacIntyre families.

Brewing Method

Hand-pour brewing for Floral Butterfly: 15g of coffee, medium grind (Fuji ghost tooth burr on setting 4), V60 dripper, water temperature 88-89C. First pour 30g of water for a 27-second bloom, then pour to 105g and pause. Wait until the water level drops halfway before continuing to pour. Pour slowly until you reach 225g in total. Avoid the tail section. Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, extraction time 2:00.

Coffee Details

• Country: Panama
• Grade: SHB
• Region: Boquete
• Roast Level: Medium roast
• Processing: Washed
• Varieties: Caturra, Catuai, Geisha

Boquete Region Excellence

Panama coffee is famous for La Esmeralda's Geisha, and the region where La Esmeralda sits is famous in its own right: the Boquete area of Chiriqui province. Boquete is a town in Chiriqui province, close to the border between Panama and Costa Rica and near the famous Baru volcano. With its beautiful scenery, fertile soil and a climate ideal for producing high-quality coffee, the region excels.

Within the Boquete region there are many excellent estates. Besides the famous La Esmeralda, there are renowned farms such as Elida Estate and Akaba Estate, all producing high-quality specialty coffee. This is due not only to the superior ecological conditions of Panama's Boquete region and the fertile volcanic ash soil of the Baru volcano area. Another important factor is the microclimate of the Boquete highlands, a unique resource for specialty coffee in the region. It is caused by Panama's east-to-west orientation, which allows cold air currents to converge above 6,500 feet through the central mountains, creating a range of microclimates around Boquete. The temperature and rainfall are ideal for plant growth, so coffee trees grown here thrive exceptionally well.

The Value Proposition

In a growing environment as blessed as Boquete, La Esmeralda's Geisha is naturally not the only coffee with exceptional flavor, quality and value. But drinking Geisha every day would be quite extravagant, and even if money were no object, eating delicacies like shark fin and bear paw daily would not be appropriate either. The same applies to coffee: broad exploration enhances the joy of appreciating it.

Panama is a Central American country, bordering Costa Rica to the west and Colombia to the east. Those familiar with single-origin coffee will know that Panama coffee is famous in the coffee world for La Esmeralda's Geisha variety. It is, one could say, a country that pursues excellence in coffee and produces high-quality beans.

Flavor Profile

Tea aroma, honey, berry fruits, classic La Esmeralda Geisha taste

Floral Butterfly: The Exceptional Value

In the land of Boquete there is a bean with particularly excellent value, and it has a very beautiful name: Floral Butterfly. It carries 70% premium Geisha heritage and is composed of three varieties: Geisha, Caturra and Catuai. It is grown in the Baru volcano region of Boquete, at an altitude of 1,600 meters in volcanic terrain. The processing plant uses refined washed processing. Panama's special local microclimate brings abundant rainfall to the region, together with large day-night temperature differences. Add the unique volcanic rock soil, meticulous harvesting and refined processing, and this coffee performs exceptionally well in body, acidity and floral notes.

The Surprising Value

Even more surprising, on top of its excellent quality, the very approachable price makes this bean's value exceptional. Its special feature is that it is composed of three varieties, 70% of them Geisha, giving the coffee very distinct Geisha characteristics. According to available information, for historical reasons, when the estate was pursuing yield in earlier times, Geisha trees were mixed-planted with Caturra and Catuai trees. For convenience at harvest, farmers did not reclassify the lots but simply mixed and processed all three varieties together. Later, after Geisha became famous and prices soared, the processing plant began refined washed processing specifically for this type of bean.

Washed Processing Excellence

There are many styles of washed processing today, but in general, after coffee cherries are harvested the floaters are removed, the pulp is taken off, and the beans are soaked in fermentation tanks. Enzymes in the water soften the mucilage attached to the parchment, while natural yeast breaks down sugars in the mucilage. This stage is called fermentation. Once fermentation is complete, the beans are moved to drying patios. During drying they must be turned constantly to ensure evenness. Finally, they are stored in parchment in warehouses and hulled and bagged only after green bean merchants place orders. Coffee processed this way tastes clean and emphasizes bright, lively fruit acidity, along with clear fruit flavors and floral notes.

Final Thoughts

So you can imagine that, with Floral Butterfly's varietal superiority and refined processing, a medium-light roast applied to finish the bean's flavor direction will win immense recognition for this Floral Butterfly and its characteristic Geisha floral notes, tropical fruit, berry-like flavors and honey sweetness and smoothness, with a very persistent aroma and finish.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Boquete is where Geisha made its name, and if you want to drink it daily without the auction price tag, FrontStreet Coffee's Panama Boquete lineup is a sensible entry point. The FrontStreet Boquete Geisha is designed as an introduction to the region, delivering the classic Panamanian combination of orange-blossom sweetness, oolong tea body and fine fruit acidity at an accessible price, while the FrontStreet Esmeralda Green Label (Private Collection) blends several plots to express the estate's signature high-altitude Geisha character more affordably than the Red Label.

For a varietal comparison in the spirit of this Floral Butterfly, FrontStreet's Geisha Village Gold Label is a natural-process Geisha 1931 and the Red Label is a Gori Gesha scoring 88 points or higher on the 100-point SCA scale, both offering traceable, single-terroir expressions from Ethiopia, Geisha's birthplace.