The Story and Relationship Between Panama Coffee Estates: Morgan Estate and Finca Deborah

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Since Geisha coffee became famous, many coffee estates around the world have been growing Geisha coffee, and even Yunnan has started growing Geisha coffee. Of course, when it comes to Geisha, many friends might immediately think of Panama's Hacienda La Esmeralda, but did you know that Panama has many other famous Geisha coffee estates that might be overshadowed by Esmeralda's reputation? Today, FrontStreet Coffee will introduce you to two other famous Geisha estates in Panama: Finca Deborah and Morgan Estate.

About Panama

Let's first understand Panama. Why can Geisha coffee from Panama's Hacienda La Esmeralda become famous, while Geisha in Ethiopia cannot? FrontStreet Coffee tells you: it's because Panama has different climate conditions. Although coffee is also an agricultural crop, it has very high requirements for its growing environment, including shade and altitude conditions. Panama's conditions can meet these requirements, which is why Geisha coffee from Panama's Hacienda La Esmeralda has such excellent flavors.

Panama borders Costa Rica to the north and Colombia to the south. Its coffee-growing regions are centered around the highest volcanic range in Central America, including Baru Volcano, Boquete region, Volcán region, and Renacimiento region. Panama possesses extremely unique microclimates, and its lands are rich in nutrient-dense volcanic soil, providing perfect environmental conditions for growing unique specialty coffees.

Jamison Savage, the owner of Finca Deborah, manages three coffee projects: Finca Deborah, Morgan Estate, and Savage Coffee.

Finca Deborah

FrontStreet Coffee has mentioned to everyone before that higher altitude coffee has better flavors. Finca Deborah is located at an altitude of over 1900 meters, covered by vast primitive forests, making it the highest and most remote coffee estate in Panama. Finca Deborah is situated on a magnificent mountain in the Volcán region of Chiriquí Province, Panama. Precisely because of Finca Deborah's extremely high altitude, diseases naturally remain at a minimum. The temperature alone creates a barren environment for fungal problems and other unwanted diseases. This allows coffee trees to focus on producing beautiful fruit rather than wasting precious energy fighting diseases. Due to the increased altitude, insect problems are also minimized.

In addition to having extremely high altitude and lower temperatures that are favorable for coffee growth, Finca Deborah often experiences scenes of pervasive fog and heavy rain, with an annual rainfall of 2200 millimeters. With such high altitude combined with large temperature differences between day and night, nighttime temperatures can drop to 10 degrees Celsius. These two important factors combine to greatly contribute to Finca Deborah's Geisha's rich sweetness and complex flavor profile. This is undoubtedly an extraordinary environment for growing various coffee varieties, and under such conditions, Geisha—one of the most complex coffee varieties—not only survives but thrives.

The natural processing at Finca Deborah requires careful manual selection first, then spreading perfectly ripe cherries in thin layers for slow drying to ensure the cleanliness of the natural processed beans. After natural drying, the cherries remain in their dried pulp for up to 60 days to enhance aroma and stabilize sugar content. Finally, another selection is made to ensure no broken coffee beans remain, making the coffee more refined and impressive.

Savage Coffee

The Savage Coffee project was initiated by Jamison Savage in Panama's Boquete region. Its members consist of small coffee estates and small-scale coffee farmers from the Boquete and Volcán producing regions. Jamison positions himself as one of the world's most sophisticated coffee producers. The coffee beans produced by his Finca Deborah have won famous coffee competitions worldwide.

Savage series coffees are harvested from small estates and small farmers in the Boquete and Volcán regions. To obtain the best-flavored coffee, the coffee cherries harvested for this project are fully mature red coffee cherries. The growers of the Savage series coffees, like Jamison Savage, show the deepest respect for the local ecology and apply core concepts of sustainable development, excellent quality, and innovation to their own land.

FrontStreet Coffee has also acquired a coffee from the Savage series. After cupping, the barista at FrontStreet Coffee praised this Savage coffee for its enticing floral notes and pleasant sweet-sour balance in its flavor profile.

Morgan Estate - The Sister Estate of Deborah

Morgan Estate

Morgan Estate, which also grows Geisha, is the sister estate of Finca Deborah. Hong Kong's Cha Ka-Po, World Barista Championship (WBC) runner-up, made a comeback in 2016 to participate in the Hong Kong Barista Championship (HKBC), choosing Geisha from Panama's Morgan Estate, winning again and earning the opportunity to compete in the 2017 World WBC competition. Panama coffee estate - Morgan Estate is the sister estate of the renowned Finca Deborah.

Morgan Estate is near the Chiriquí volcano, with an altitude of 1600-1800 meters, located on the steep western slopes of Baru Volcano. The estate features lush tropical rainforests and picturesque waterfalls. It has been growing coffee for eight years and is managed by Jamison, owner of Panama's Finca Deborah. The total area is about 15 hectares, with approximately 2000 coffee trees planted per hectare. Two wooden houses are situated on either side of a valley stream, with clear water flowing from north to south. Century-old trees are visible everywhere, creating picturesque scenery, and the preservation of original forest vegetation is excellent.

The coffee trees are planted on steep slopes on both sides, making harvesting quite difficult. Morgan Estate adopts completely natural organic farming methods, adjusting fertilizer application ratios based on soil conditions and the nutritional needs of coffee trees. When coffee trees encounter pests or diseases, the entire tree is removed, and the soil is renewed to isolate pests and diseases and protect other coffee trees. Estate owner Jamison states that to avoid polluting local water sources and natural ecosystems, coffee cherries are transported elsewhere for processing and drying after harvest. Geisha coffee trees prefer cool environments, requiring only about 40% of daily sunlight. Staff regularly patrol the estate to maintain the optimal ratio of shade and sunlight for Geisha coffee trees.

The Geisha produced by Jamison has complex layers and diverse flavors, making it very suitable for pour-over brewing. This Geisha is the green-tipped variety, growing on both sides of very steep mountains, so care and harvesting are quite challenging. Lower temperatures combined with dense shade trees slow the maturation of coffee cherries, thereby developing excellent acidity.

Coffee Processing Method

Jamison has studied post-harvest processing and coffee processing techniques at Finca Deborah for over ten years. The Savage series Geisha coffee that FrontStreet Coffee acquired uses anaerobic natural processing.

First, freshly harvested coffee cherries are sun-dried in greenhouses until they become raisin-like; then these dried coffee cherries are placed in sealed containers with oxygen removed for 36 hours of dry fermentation; followed by depulping while retaining 100% of the pulp for fermentation. Coffee processed this way has extremely sweet flavors, highlighting fresh fruit and floral notes.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Recommendations

For coffee brewing, FrontStreet Coffee recommends using freshly roasted coffee beans to maximize the experience of coffee's rich flavors. Coffee beans shipped by FrontStreet Coffee are roasted within 5 days, because FrontStreet Coffee deeply understands that coffee bean freshness has a significant impact on flavor. FrontStreet Coffee's roasting philosophy is "Freshly Roasted Good Coffee," ensuring that every customer who places an order receives the freshest coffee possible. The coffee resting period is about 4-7 days, so when customers receive their coffee, it's at its optimal flavor time.

Of course, some customers need FrontStreet Coffee to grind the beans for them, which is also fine. However, FrontStreet Coffee must remind you: when coffee beans are ground in advance, there's no need for further resting because during transportation, the pressure from carbon dioxide buildup in the package also helps round out the coffee's flavor, so you can brew a cup immediately upon receiving the ground coffee. However, ground coffee needs to be brewed promptly because it oxidizes quickly after exposure to air, meaning the coffee's flavor will dissipate relatively quickly, and the coffee won't taste as good. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee recommends purchasing whole beans and grinding fresh before brewing to better experience the coffee's flavors.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Parameters:

FrontStreet Coffee considered that this Geisha coffee bean is lightly roasted. Lightly roasted beans have a lower solubility rate than dark-roasted beans, so to ensure full extraction of Geisha flavors, higher water temperature is used for brewing, along with a finer grind size.

Dripper: Hario V60, Water Temperature: 90°C, Coffee Amount: 15g, Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15, Grind Size: Medium-fine grind (Chinese standard #20 sieve 80% pass rate)

The brewing method uses three-stage extraction. Pour coffee grounds into the V60 dripper, use twice the weight of the coffee grounds in water to wet the coffee bed, forming a dome and letting it bloom for 30s. Then use a small water stream to pour from inside out in circles until reaching 125g for the first stage. Wait until the coffee bed drops to half the height of the dripper, then continue with the same fine stream to pour the third stage to 225g. Remove the dripper once all coffee liquid has filtered through, with a total time of about 2 minutes.

[Panama Finca Deborah Savage Geisha Coffee Flavor] Distinct white floral notes, pineapple and fermented beverage-like sweet-sour balance, full-bodied texture, overall clean and balanced.

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