Panama Illeta Estate Single-Origin Coffee Varieties, Brand Recommendations, and Estate Introduction

Panama Eleta Estate Single-Origin Varieties, Brand Recommendations and Estate Introduction

Introduction

Coffee reached Panama in 1780, when Europeans brought the first Typica varieties. The exotic drink quickly won over Panamanian palates, and farmers began to cultivate it widely. Panama coffee is remarkably smooth, with plump but light beans and beautifully balanced acidity. The best lots are pure and distinctive in flavor, and a medium roast is often recommended. Many buyers like to use Panama beans in blends, and almost all of the country's premium coffee is exported to France and Finland.

Tastes differ, so it is worth buying small quantities first and comparing a few roast levels. Here are the drop points we suggest working through:

Roast Level Recommendations:

• Drop beans during early first crack
• Drop beans at the end of first crack
• Drop beans between first and second crack
• Drop beans when touching second crack
• Drop beans 10-15 seconds into second crack
• Drop beans during dense second crack

We hope every roasting specialist finds the profile they are looking for.

Panama's Main Growing Regions

Boquete: abundant, high-quality coffee makes this both the highest-yielding and the best region in Panama.

Volcán: mild, balanced flavors that are steadily drawing attention from international experts and enthusiasts, and are expected to rival Boquete before long.

Santa Clara: fertile farms irrigated by clear river water from the Chorerra waterfall; its proximity to the Panama Canal makes shipping fresh, pure Panama coffee around the world convenient.

Piedra de Candela: considered to have the greatest potential for developing high-quality specialty coffee.

For the past 5-6 years Panama has been the hottest country in Central America, largely because the Geisha variety grown at Hacienda La Esmeralda, run by the Peterson family, has driven coffee lovers wild. Geisha is now regarded as the world's top coffee bean. That is why the Panama Cup of Excellence auction stands apart from the Central and South American cupping competitions and is the earliest auction country, held every year in mid-May. Panama impresses not only with Geisha but with constant innovation in green bean processing. Beyond traditional washed coffee, there is honey processing of the kind popular in neighboring Costa Rica, along with small-scale natural production, all of it watched closely by coffee professionals worldwide.

Café de Eleta (also known as Fox Estate) sits in a small part of the Santa Clara region, just one kilometer from the Costa Rican border and close to La Amistad International Park, a major primary forest reserve that forms part of the Central American ecological habitat. Eleta Estate began buying land in the 1970s and covered approximately 130 hectares, initially growing vegetables and raising livestock. Coffee planting only began in 1995, when the operation was named Café de Eleta S.A. and continued to expand. Today it covers 420 hectares, making it one of Panama's large-scale coffee estates and one of the country's best-known coffees. The abundant water supply supports a private 530KW hydroelectric plant that covers the estate's own needs and sells the surplus to Distribución de Electricidad Chiriquí S.A. for the grid.

This lot keeps the purest original flavors. Café de Eleta SHB washed coffee is harvested from high-altitude Caturra, so it carries strong fruity and floral notes. In the cup: creamy bread, apricot kernel sweetness, cane sugar sweetness, rounded acidity, a complex aroma, balanced sweet and sour, and a pleasant mouthfeel.

Coffee Details

Variety: Caturra
Estate: Café de Eleta
Flavor: creamy bread, apricot kernel sweetness, rounded acidity

Caturra is a natural mutation of the Arabica Bourbon variety, discovered in Brazil in 1937. The plant is shorter and more compact than Bourbon. It inherits Bourbon's relatively weak disease resistance but yields more. Although it was found in Brazil, Caturra does not grow well there and was never planted on a large scale; instead it became widely popular across Central and South America, notably in Colombia, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

Flavor matters more than botany here. The higher the altitude, the better the quality of Caturra, though the yield drops accordingly. Light-roasted Caturra shows obvious acidic aromas and overall brightness. Handled well, its sweetness comes through clearly, but the body is relatively light compared to Bourbon and the mouthfeel can be slightly less clean.

Caturra usually produces red berries, but in very rare places a yellow Caturra appears; Hawaii, for example, grows a very small amount.

Coffee grading systems worldwide are not standardized. Every producing country has its own grades and grade names, so labels may show terms such as "SHB," "AA+," "Supremo," "Extra-Fancy" or "Peaberry." These are bean grade names. Specialty coffee sold at retail sometimes states its grade, and the more detail provided, the better the quality usually is; commodity coffee generally does not list these grades at all.

Manufacturer: FrontStreet Coffee
Ingredients: in-house roasted
Shelf life: 30 days
Net weight: 227g
Packaging: bulk
Taste: neutral coffee
Bean state: roasted coffee beans
Contains sugar: no
Origin: Panama

Panama MC Santa Clara Eleta SHB Washed

Country: Panama
Grade: SHB
Region: Santa Clara
Altitude: average 1600 meters
Processing method: washed

For a hand-poured Panama Eleta, use 15g of coffee at a medium grind (small Fuji ghost tooth grinder, setting #4), a V60 dripper and water at 88-89°C. First pour 30g of water and let it bloom for 27 seconds, then pour to 105g and stop. When the water level drops to halfway, slowly pour to a total of 225g, avoiding the tail end. Brew ratio 1:15, extraction time 2:00.

Detailed Information

Product name: Panama Santa Clara Fox Estate Washed SHB (Panama MC Santa Clara Eleta SHB Washed)
Region: Santa Clara
Estate: Finca Eleta
Variety: Caturra
Altitude: average 1600 meters
Grade: SHB
Processing method: washed
Harvest period: N/A
Certification: N/A
Flavor characteristics: creamy bread, apricot kernel sweetness, cane sugar sweetness, rounded acidity, complex aroma, balanced sweet and sour, pleasant mouthfeel.

Panama

Population: 3,406,000

Coffee in Panama is defined by how it is produced rather than by geography. When coffee was more widely grown and the regions below were smaller and more tightly clustered, the beans produced there could be sold as a single unit.

BOQUETE

Boquete is Panama's most famous growing region. Its mountainous terrain creates many microclimates, and the relatively cool weather and frequent fog slow the ripening of the cherries, conditions some compare to a high-altitude climate.

Altitude: 400-1,900m
Harvest: December-March
Varieties: Typica, Caturra, Catuai, Bourbon, Geisha, San Ramon

VOLCAN-CANDELA

The Volcán-Candela region produces most of Panama's food and some remarkable coffee. It takes its name from the Barú volcano and the town of Piedra Candela, and borders Costa Rica.

Altitude: 1,200-1,600m
Harvest: December-March
Varieties: Typica, Caturra, Catuai, Bourbon, Geisha, San Ramon

RENACIMIENTO

Renacimiento is a growing region in Chiriquí province, bordering Costa Rica. It is relatively small and is not a major specialty coffee region in Panama.

Altitude: 1,100-1,500m
Harvest: December-March
Varieties: Typica, Caturra, Catuai, Bourbon, Geisha, San Ramon

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If this introduction to Panama has you curious about what the country tastes like in the cup, a good place to start is FrontStreet Coffee Boquete Washed Geisha. It comes from Panama's most representative specialty region, planted at 1600 meters on fertile volcanic ash soil, a level that gives the fruit a long ripening season and a rich aroma. Brewed as a pour-over, it shows Geisha's signature jasmine, green tea, honey, citrus and orange notes.

Panama's strength runs well beyond a single variety. FrontStreet Coffee Flower Butterfly is a washed blend of Geisha, Caturra and Catuai, half of it carrying Geisha blood, grown in the Baru volcano area of Boquete where heavy rainfall, a wide day-night temperature swing and volcanic rock soil shape the cup. It performs especially well as pour-over and cold brew, with good body, citrus acidity and jasmine aroma. For those ready to step up, FrontStreet Coffee Esmeralda Red Label Geisha is harvested from a single plot above 1700 meters and must cup at 91 points, offering a refined orange-blossom and honey character. If you prefer a softer, fruitier Panama profile, FrontStreet Coffee Diamond Mountain comes from the Jaramillo and Canas Verdes farms of the Esmeralda estate, built mainly on Caturra and Catuai, with abundant fruit aromas and sweetness.

For everyday brewing, the estate coffees above respond well to a V60-style pour-over. A medium grind, water at 88-89°C and a 1:15 ratio suit the SHB washed lots in particular: bloom with 30g of water for about 27 seconds, pour to 105g and pause, then finish slowly to 225g once the bed has drained halfway, aiming for a total extraction of around 2:00. Keeping the pour gentle protects the clean, rounded acidity that Panama coffee is known for.