What Does Panama Finca La Mula Taste Like and How to Brew Panama Coffee

Introduction to Catuai

"Catuai" is a hybrid of Mundo Novo and Caturra, making it a second-generation hybrid. It inherits Caturra's advantage of short stature. The variety name Catuai comes from a native language and means "very good." A member of the Arabica family, Catuai is relatively high-yielding.

Brewing Instructions

FrontStreet Coffee's Panama Jurutunguo pour-over: use 15g of coffee, medium grind (Fuji ghost-tooth grinder #4), V60 dripper, water temperature 88-89°C. First infusion with 30g of water, bloom for 27 seconds. Pour to 105g and stop, wait until the water level drops to half, then slowly pour until reaching 225g. Avoid the tail section. Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, extraction time 2:00.

Product Information

Shelf Life: 90 days
Net Weight: 227g
Packaging: Bulk coffee beans
Roast Level: Roasted coffee beans
Sugar Content: Sugar-free
Origin: Panama
Roast Degree: Medium roast

Coffee Details

Product: FrontStreet Coffee Panama Jurutunguo Honey Process Catuai
Country: Panama
Grade: SHB
Region: Jurutunguo growing area
Roast Level: Medium roast
Processing Method: Honey process
Variety: Catuai
Processing Mill: Jurutunguo Estate
Flavor Notes: Lemon, orange, cranberry, green tea

Cupping Profile

Dried fruit aroma, rich fruit acidity, with prominent sweetness on entry. Notes of lemon, orange, cranberry and green tea, with a uniform, smooth texture that is soft and carries some floral notes, and a long-lasting aftertaste.

About Catuai

Catuai is a coffee variety artificially hybridized from Caturra and Mundo Novo. It resists natural disasters well, particularly wind and rain.

The Catuai tree is relatively short compared with other coffee trees. Its fruit grows more compactly and is not easy to harvest. The fruit comes in both red and yellow varieties. To date, no superior taste has been found in yellow fruit compared with red. In fact, some have found in cupping that while coffee processed from yellow fruit may have good acidity, its cleanliness is inferior to that from red fruit.

Catuai was cultivated in Brazil and is now widely planted throughout Central America.

Panama Coffee Region

Panama's premium coffee grows in the western part of the country, near Costa Rica and close to the Pacific coast. Coffee from the Boquete region of Chiriqui province is the most famous, with Volcan, Santa Clara and Candela also well known. Other regions include the David, Remacimeinto, Bugaba and Tole areas. Only coffee grown at altitudes between 1,300 and 1,500 meters is considered specialty coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Panama lies in Central America, with its coffee areas in the west at Boquete, Volcan, Santa Clara and Piedra de Candela; Boquete and Volcan are the two specialty regions most often heard about. Both sit in Chiriqui Province, fully within the coffee belt, with fertile volcanic soil and old forests. In Boquete the mountain slopes are often veiled in cloud, humid by day and cool at night, and the fertile soil from Baru volcano helps produce a coffee as fine as Geisha. The higher the trees are planted, the longer the fruit ripens and the more nutrients it takes in, which is why the flavor grows richer and more distinctive.

If you are tasting Panamanian specialty coffee for the first time, the FrontStreet Boquete Geisha is the natural entry point: an estate-level Geisha planted at 1,600 meters, where the fertile volcanic ash soil feeds a rich coffee fragrance, with the jasmine, green tea, honey, citrus and orange that define Geisha. The FrontStreet Panama Washed Butterfly has half of that Geisha pedigree, made up of Geisha, Caturra and Catuai grown in Boquete's Baru volcano area, where the local microclimate brings abundant rainfall and wide day-night temperature swings; the volcanic rock soil and careful picking and processing give it real depth, citrus acidity and Geisha's jasmine aroma, suited to both pour-over and cold brew.

At the top of the range sits the FrontStreet Esmeralda Red Label Geisha. Esmeralda Estate both discovered Geisha's flavor and popularized Panamanian Geisha, and it cup-tests different parts of the farm and assigns plots by altitude, which is how the Red, Green and Blue Label grades emerged. The Red Label is the highest, picked from a single plot above 1,700 meters with a cupping score of at least 91 and a refined orange-blossom honey character. For another Esmeralda option, the FrontStreet Diamond Mountain draws its green beans from two of Esmeralda's four independent farms, Jaramillo and Canas Verdes, whose volcanic soil and original forest shade give the Caturra- and Catuai-based coffee rich fruit aroma and sweetness.