One of the World's Top Ten Coffee Brands | What are the Flavors and Texture of Hartmann Estate's Red Wine Processing?

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One of the World's Top Ten Coffee Brands | Hartmann Estate

What do Hartmann Estate's red-wine processing method taste like, and what kind of mouthfeel does it offer? FrontStreet Coffee carries the estate's coffee, and here we take a closer look.

FrontStreet Coffee 2018 Panama Hartmann Estate Red Wine Process Catuai Fresh Roasted Black Coffee

Hartmann Estate: A Pioneer in Environmental Conservation

Hartmann Estate's coffee has always been a leader in Panama, winning the Best of Panama award as early as 2006. What is particularly special is that, to protect the forest ecosystem, the estate follows the principle of never clearing forest for cultivation, calling its coffee shade-grown. It holds bird-friendly certification and ranks among the pioneers of environmentally friendly coffee growing in Panama. Coffee peel and pulp are turned into special compost instead of chemical fertilizer, avoiding pollution and keeping the whole operation organic from start to finish.

The Hartmann Family's European Immigration Story

The Hartmann family's history in Panama is a long story of European immigration. Alois Strasil Hartmann was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in what is now the Czech Republic. With political conditions at home unstable, he decided to start a new life abroad. Alois first stayed in New York before eventually moving to Panama, but after a few months he found that city life in Panama City did not suit him. Adventure ran in his blood, and soon after quitting his job he decided to follow the mountain line to the Volcán area to work and settle. There he married his first wife, Susana Troetsch, and they had Hartmann Troetsch, the founder of Hartmann Estate. From 1940, Hartmann Troetsch inherited his father's farmland and began preparing the land, establishing the estate that continues to this day. During that early clearing, the elder Hartmann decided to preserve most of the original forest within the property, and this commitment to native forest has carried through to the current third-generation managers. Today Hartmann Estate still keeps the tradition: coffee occupies only about 20% of the entire estate. Thanks to the success of its forest conservation, the estate hosts numerous native bird species, and the locally famous toucan naturally became its logo.

Current Management and Operations

Hartmann Estate is currently managed by Hartmann Troetsch's five children, who share the estate's affairs. The eldest siblings, Ratibor and Kelly, are mainly responsible for the work tied to coffee quality, including cultivation, breeding and fertilization across the estate's plots, and are the soul figures of the operation. Beyond its own land, the Hartmann family also manages estates near Volcán; Ninety Plus' estates in Panama, for example, have long maintained close cooperation with the family on estate management.

Hartmann Estate's Two Coffee Farms

Hartmann Estate is a coffee estate run jointly by the Hartmann family. Its founder, Alois Strasil Hartmann, came to Panama's Boquete region around 1918 to start his cultivation business. Today the estate has two coffee farms, Ojo de Agua and Palo Verde, located about two miles apart. Coffee at Ojo de Agua is grown under shade trees, and much of the estate is original forest, serving as one of the buffer zones for the famous La Amistad Forest Reserve that spans Costa Rica and Panama. Its average elevation ranges from 1,220 to 1,828 meters. Dirt roads lead through the estate to native wildlife habitats, making it ideal for birdwatching, hiking and exploring. Palo Verde farm is what most people know as Hartmann Estate. Coffee here also thrives under rainforest shade trees, at an average elevation of 1,250 meters, with annual temperatures between 12.7 and 26.6 degrees Celsius and annual rainfall of 4,500 millimeters. The estate has interconnected dirt roads and a small museum with insect specimens and local handicrafts.

Production and Varietal Information

Hartmann Estate's annual production is very limited. The area currently cultivates only a few varieties: Geisha, Caturra and Catuai. The estate covers 120 hectares, of which only 20 hectares are cultivated. Another property, named Santa Clara, serves as both a coffee estate and a nursery, and houses Hartmann Estate's washed processing plant. It is also where the owner experiments with how different varieties perform. More than ten varieties are currently under trial, and any promising ones will be earmarked for larger-scale cultivation in the future.

Variety and Processing Details

Variety: Caturra

Processing System: Natural process

Flowering period: September - October

Harvest period: March - July

Appearance: 16-18 screen size

Top Jury Descriptions: Cupping roast level begins 60 seconds after first crack (Cinnamon roast)

Aroma/Flavor: Delicate cranberry aroma, mango fermentation notes, multiple berries, cherry

Acidity: Grapefruit acidity, cherry, orange; the acidity is not refined and is somewhat coarse

Complexity and Other: Mango-cantaloupe fermented fruit sweetness, balanced with high oil content and excellent mouthfeel, moderate complexity with smoothness, black tea aftertaste

FrontStreet Coffee's Recommended Brewing Method

Dripper: Hario V60

Water Temperature: 90°C

Grind Size: Fuji grinder setting 3.5

Brewing Method: Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, 15g of coffee grounds. First infusion with 25g of water, blooming for 25 seconds. Second infusion to 120g of water, then stop pouring. When the water level in the coffee bed drops to half, continue pouring slowly until you reach 225g in total. Extraction time approximately 2:00.

Analysis: A three-stage brew clearly separates the front, middle and back-end flavors of the coffee. Because the V60 has many ribs and drains quickly, pausing the pour helps extend the extraction time.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Panama sits in Central America, with its coffee regions clustered in the country's west at Boquete, Volcán, Santa Clara and Piedra de Candela; Boquete and Volcán are the specialty names you hear most often. Both lie in the Chiriquí highlands, squarely within the coffee belt, with fertile volcanic soil and old-growth forest. In Boquete, clouds frequently veil the mountains, the days are humid and the nights are cool, and the fertile soil laid down by Barú Volcano makes ideal conditions for growing the prized Geisha. The higher the trees are planted, the longer the cherries take to ripen and the more nutrients they absorb, so the flavor becomes richer and more distinctive.

If you are tasting Panamanian specialty coffee for the first time, FrontStreet Coffee's Boquete Geisha is the coffee to buy. It is an estate-level, entry-point Geisha grown at 1,600 meters, where the fertile volcanic-ash soil feeds the trees and builds a lush aroma. Brewed, it shows Geisha's signature jasmine, green tea, honey, citrus and orange notes. FrontStreet Coffee's Panama Washed Butterfly is another route in: a rare wild Geisha relative and a regular champion at international competitions, Geisha has slender green beans and a roasted citrussy lift with a floral, fruity sweetness that is truly one of a kind. Butterfly carries half of that Geisha pedigree, blending Geisha, Caturra and Catuai planted in Boquete's Barú Volcano area, where Panama's special microclimate brings plentiful rain and a wide day-night temperature swing; together with the volcanic soil and meticulous harvesting and processing, it performs beautifully in overall body, citrus acidity and Geisha's jasmine aroma. It is excellent both as pour-over and as cold brew.

For the highest grade, FrontStreet Coffee's Esmeralda Red Label is the choice. The famous Esmeralda Estate both discovered Geisha's flavor and popularized Panamanian Geisha, and its product line reflects how seriously it treats the variety. After cupping different parts of the farm and assigning planting blocks by altitude, it settled on the Red, Green and Blue Label grades we know today. The Red Label is harvested from a single plot above 1,700 meters and must cup at 91 points, delivering a refined orange-blossom honey character. FrontStreet Coffee's Diamond Mountain comes from the estate's star brand, planted mainly with Caturra and Catuai; its green beans are picked from two of the estate's four independent farms, Jaramillo and Cañas Verdes, whose volcanic soil is ideal for coffee and whose primary forest shades the trees. Those conditions give the beans a rich fruit aroma and sweetness, making Diamond Mountain one of the estate's most popular brands alongside Geisha.