Panama Duncan Estate Boquete Natural Caturra: Differences, Distinctions, and Award-Winning Achievements

For professional barista discussions, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style)

Roast Level

Medium Roast

The Duncan Estate: Premium Picking Methods

The "DUNCAN" estate produces unique 'Premium Picking' and 'Reserva Picking' methods. This approach pushes coffee to extremely high quality and flavor levels, but greatly reduces coffee yield. KOTOWA's focus on implementing 'Premium Picking' is—coffee cherries can only be harvested when they show a dark wine color (Overripe Dark Color), and must be processed "immediately" and "quickly" after picking! The cost of achieving this flavor is extremely high. Another method, 'Reserva Picking', is also called fully-ripe picking (Quickly Processed).

'Reserva Picking' doesn't rely solely on color as the picking standard—it must judge the sweetness and the quality of fruit flesh sweetness! Besides being 100% fully red before picking, it must also be 100% converted to fruit sweetness before picking, and only picked when it tastes like velvet-like sweetness!

Origin Information

Region: Boquete Special Region

Altitude: 1250-1700 Meters

Located in the Baru Volcano region, it possesses unique microclimate and volcanic terrain. The growing season has abundant rainfall and distinct wet and dry seasons; coupled with lava flows from the volcanic belt, fertile volcanic black soil and good drainage provide uniquely superior growing conditions, making the coffee produced here exceptionally captivating. The altitude here exceeds 1700 meters, with strong winds, and many huge coniferous forests in the garden, with tree ages exceeding 200 years.

Kotowa also places great importance on ecological environment, completely avoiding any chemical fertilizers, using cherry skins and pulp to create high-nutrient compost to nourish coffee trees and give back to the land. Not only was Kotowa Coffee nominated by Panama's environmental agency in 2006 as the winner of Panama's National Environmental Protection Award, but it also created the uniqueness of Duncan Estate's coffee flavor, making the produced coffee beans of excellent quality, consistently achieving top rankings in BOP.

Flavor Profile

Fruit wine, fermented fruit aroma, honey citrus, malt sweetness, sweet peach, distinct layers, fine texture, candied fruit

Product Information

Brand: FrontStreet Coffee

Address: No. 10 Bao'an Front Street, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, FrontStreet Coffee

Shelf Life: 90 days

Net Weight: 227g

Packaging: Bulk coffee beans

Roast Level: Roasted coffee beans

Sugar Content: Sugar-free

Origin: Panama

Panama Duncan Coffee Details

Country: Panama

Grade: SHG

Processing Method: Natural Processing

Variety: Caturra

Estate: Duncan Estate

Flavor: Fruit wine, fermented fruit aroma, honey citrus

Caturra Variety

Caturra is a single-gene variant of Bourbon, discovered in Brazil in 1937. Both production capacity and disease resistance are better than Bourbon, and the plants are shorter, making harvesting convenient. Unfortunately, like Bourbon, it has the problem of production cycles fluctuating every two years. However, its adaptability is strong—it doesn't need shade trees and can thrive directly under intense sun, called Sun Coffee. It can adapt to high-density planting but requires more fertilization, increasing costs, so initial coffee farmer acceptance was not high.

But in the 1970s, when coffee prices rose sharply, farmers changed to planting Caturra to increase production. With strong promotion by Brazilian and Colombian authorities, results were fruitful. Farmers accepting Caturra meant a major change in planting technology. Brazil and Colombia adopted high-yield, high-density sun-exposed planting. By 1990, one million hectares could harvest 14 million bags of coffee beans, increasing production capacity by 60%. No wonder high-production, high-quality Caturra has become a variety that various producing countries now rely on.

Caturra is suitable for planting from low altitudes of 700 meters to high altitudes of 1700 meters, with strong altitude adaptability. The higher the altitude, the better the flavor, but relatively lower production—this is the fate of specialty beans. Some in academia call Caturra the intensive and sun-exposed version of Bourbon, which is quite perceptive. Central and South America also have a variant called Yellow Caturra (Caturra Amarello), but its reputation is not as good as Yellow Bourbon.

When Caturra is lightly roasted, the acidity aroma is obvious and overall bright. If properly handled, sweetness can be expressed very well, but the coffee body is relatively low compared to Bourbon, and the cleanliness of the mouthfeel is somewhat lacking.

Usually Caturra has red berries, but in very few areas there are yellow Caturras. For example, Hawaii grows very few yellow Caturras.

Brewing Instructions

Hand-poured Duncan. 15g powder, medium grind (small Fuji ghost tooth blade #4 grind), V60 dripper, 88-89°C water temperature. First pour 30g water, bloom for 27 seconds, pour to 105g then stop pouring. Wait until the water level in the coffee bed drops to half before pouring again, slowly pour until reaching 225g. Don't use the tail section. Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, extraction time 2:00

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473