The Story of Finca Santa Teresa Estate: Panama's Santa Clara Coffee Region

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Today is another time for FrontStreet Coffee to share Panama coffee beans. You don't need to obsess over Geisha. FrontStreet Coffee's search in Panama isn't just for Geisha - with so many coffee farms and excellent coffees yet to be discovered, finding beans with novel flavors is the real purpose. Today, FrontStreet Coffee wants to share a Caturra variety from a renowned local Panamanian coffee estate: Finca Santa Teresa. This estate is very famous with numerous awards, so there's no question about the quality of its coffee. As FrontStreet Coffee mentioned, we don't just seek Geisha - our aim is to find more high-quality coffees. So what's special about this bean after testing? Read on and you'll have a new experience.

Estate Introduction

Finca Santa Teresa is located in the Santa Clara region on the border between Panama and Costa Rica. The estate is run by owner Juan Pablo Berard and his daughter Maria Luisia, who jointly manage this 100-hectare coffee farm, preserving 25 hectares as primary forest for wildlife habitat. Coffee varieties planted include Caturra, Catuai, and Geisha. This estate has won numerous awards and is also enthusiastic about education, joining the non-profit organization Casa Esperanza which provides two teachers, while Juan Pablo built school facilities, providing books and meals, dedicated to local educational development. This estate has a modest planting area, but it's well-equipped with its own processing plant, sufficient to handle all work from berries to bags. Most employees are local residents from the border area and are well taken care of by the owner.

Finca Santa Teresa (FST) is located in a high-altitude area, blessed with rich black volcanic soil, and receives nourishment from both Pacific and Atlantic weather patterns. These advantages create excellent coffee. Situated in beautiful valleys and ridges, Finca Santa Teresa creates various different microclimates, giving each micro-lot of specialty green coffee different characteristics. Finca Santa Teresa uses environmentally friendly cultivation and green bean processing methods - all waste related to the production process is recycled as fertilizer or used as fuel. Additionally, Finca Santa Teresa provides free meals, medical care, accommodation, transportation, utilities, and education for all employees. There's also a school on the farm for employees' children, allowing farmers to focus fully on caring for coffee trees without worrying about family situations.

Finca Santa Teresa's award records:

2005 Best of Panama: Fourth place

2007 Best of Panama: Sixth place

2011 Best of Panama: Third place

2012: Used by World Pour Over Coffee Champion (FST Geisha)

2012 Best of Panama: Fourth place (Geisha)

2013 Best of Panama:

Third place (Geisha Natural)

Fourth place (Geisha Honey)

Sixth place (Geisha Lavado)

Processing Method Introduction

Natural processing, simply put, is using the sun to dry coffee cherries with their pulp and skin intact, which is why it's called "Natural" in English. However, this natural processing method, while seemingly simple, is not easy at all. Commercial natural processing involves laying a plastic sheet on the ground and placing coffee beans directly on it for sun drying. The problem with this approach is that ground heat transfer and air convection around the coffee cherries are unstable. If not stirred frequently, there can be issues with excessive temperature rise or uneven fermentation. (Imagine the beans on top being nicely sun-dried while those underneath might develop strange flavors from being trapped).

Additionally, there are many harmful bacteria and contaminants on the ground that can also damage the coffee's flavor. Therefore, traditional natural processing often has... unusual flavors. In the past, high-quality beans wouldn't be processed using natural methods because of this poor reputation, and they couldn't fetch high prices. However, natural processing has improved significantly in recent years. Most natural processing methods now use African raised beds, which effectively block ground moisture and soil while increasing air convection. Temperature is also strictly controlled during natural processing to prevent over-fermentation from high temperatures. The entire natural processing process usually takes more than 20 days, allowing bacteria and coffee cherry pulp to ferment gradually, resulting in sweeter flavors with rich tropical fruit notes.

FrontStreet Coffee Green Bean Analysis

Caturra is a single-gene variant of Bourbon, discovered in Brazil in 1937. Both its yield and disease resistance are better than Bourbon, and the plant is shorter, making harvesting convenient. Unfortunately, like Bourbon, it has the problem of biennial yield cycles. However, its flavor is comparable to or slightly inferior to Bourbon beans, and more importantly, it has extremely strong adaptability - it doesn't need shade trees and can thrive directly under intense sun, earning it the nickname "Sun Coffee." It can adapt to high-density planting but requires more fertilizer, increasing costs, so initial acceptance by coffee farmers was not high. Caturra is suitable for planting from low altitudes of 700 meters to high altitudes of 1700 meters, with strong altitude adaptability, but the higher the altitude, the better the flavor, though yield decreases relatively - this is the destiny of specialty beans. Some academics call Caturra the intensive and sun-exposed version of Bourbon, which is quite apt.

FrontStreet Coffee Roasting Analysis - Yangjia 600g Semi-direct Flame Roaster

This coffee bean has medium density, and medium roast is the most suitable roast level to showcase the character of this bean.

Using a fast-roasting approach, heat the drum to 200°C before dropping in the beans, with the air damper set to 3. After 1 minute, reduce heat to 160°C, keeping the air damper unchanged. At 5'20", the temperature reaches 150.3°C, the bean surface turns yellow, grassy aroma completely disappears, dehydration is complete. Reduce heat to 140°C, open the air damper to 4. At 168°C is the Maillard reaction point - reduce heat to 110 to develop flavor. At 196.3°C, reduce heat again to 80, entering first crack with medium heat.

At 8'20", wrinkles and black spots appear on the bean surface, toast aroma clearly transitions to coffee aroma - this can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this point, listen carefully for the sound of first crack. At 9'17", first crack begins, open the air damper completely, reduce heat from 186.6°C to 70, and roast until 196.3°C before dropping. Development time is 2'05".

FrontStreet Coffee Cupping Records

FrontStreet Coffee Panama Finca Santa Teresa Caturra

Panama Finca Santa Teresa

Region: Santa Clara District

Variety: Caturra

Estate: Finca Santa Teresa

Altitude: 1400-1500 meters

Processing: Natural

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Analysis

Recommended brewing method: Pour over using V60 dripper, 15g coffee, water temperature 89°C, Fuji grinder setting 3.5, water-to-coffee ratio close to 1:15. Bloom with 30g water for 30s. Staged brewing: Pour water to 130g, pause until water level drops by 1/3, then pour again to 230g.

FrontStreet Coffee Flavor Description

The entrance brings citrus and lemon acidity, with honeydew melon and nut flavors appearing in the middle, finishing with some caramel sweetness in the aftertaste.

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