Panama Boquete Region | Casa Luis Berlina Estate | Flavor Profile of Honey Process Typica

Panama Boquete Region: Casa Ruiz La Berlina Estate, Honey-Processed Typica

Casa Ruiz is the best-known cooperative in the Boquete region on the slopes of Baru Volcano in Panama. Three generations of family heritage have given it a deep bench of estates, farms and resources, and that integration, both across and down the business, is a large part of why the region's coffee is so well regarded internationally. Even as the coffee industry boomed, Casa Ruiz refused to chase volume; it doubled down instead on natural ecology and on living alongside the environment, which keeps turning out high-quality beans. This is the approach that has made it an almost permanent fixture among the winners of Panama's Best Coffee competitions and a major trading partner for specialty green beans.

La Berlina Estate within Casa Ruiz was founded by Mr. Segundo Diaz, a Colombian soldier sent to Panama in the 1900s to settle the country's separation and independence from Gran Colombia. Panama won its independence peacefully as a result. The Colombian soldiers had two choices: return home with their units or stay and become Panamanian citizens. He chose to stay, having fallen for the Boquete region and, more to the point, for a local Boquete girl. Once his family was settled he found a piece of high mountain land and started growing coffee. In 1920 their first coffee seeds were found in the surrounding wild tropical rainforest. They believed the seeds had been dropped by a local animal called the "Jujunas" (monkeys) after eating the coffee pulp, sprouting there into wild coffee trees. Alongside coffee they raised cattle and pigs and grew corn on the land. By the 1930s La Berlina Estate was already well known locally as a farm.

A few years later, though, the first major coffee price crash hit, and his son Don Manuel was forced to sell off his father's life's work and leave the estate. In 1997 another negative turn in the economy created an opening, and Casa Ruiz S.A. bought the estate and folded it into its portfolio. The Casa Ruiz S.A. cooperative had been founded in 1979 and is one of the most famous cooperatives in the Boquete region on Baru Volcano, headquartered in the valley at the volcano's foot. The family has carried the business through three generations, with more than 300 small family farms and estates joining as partners across cultivation, processing and marketing. Most member estates, including Berlina, Maunier, Panamaria and Cafe Ruiz, have a hundred-year history. Where other cooperatives sacrifice the environment to expand planting and raise yields, Casa Ruiz and its partners stick to environmentally friendly traditional cultivation in Boquete. To lift green bean quality, however, they have tightened every step of green bean processing, from cultivation and processing to selection and storage. Beyond its perennial presence among Best of Panama winners, Casa Ruiz is also an important partner for Panama's specialty green beans.

Casa Ruiz, S.A. runs its own estates, established in 1920 in the Boquete growing region of Baru Volcano, in the Boquete valley at the volcano's foot in northwestern Panama. Three generations of coffee-growing expertise sit behind varieties that include Typica, Caturra, Catuai, Mundo Novo and Bourbons. In 1979 it formed a cooperative, drawing together more than 300 small local family farms for enormous production scale.

Casa Ruiz La Berlina Estate Typica Honey Process is exported through the cooperative's own company. From the appearance, consistency and freshness of the green beans to the dry aroma and flavor, everything is excellent. The aroma is distinctive, the taste clean and fresh, with unique fruit flavors and aromas, dried fruit, black tea, almonds, good sweetness and a pleasant aftertaste.

Recent Award Records of Casa Ruiz Estates

• 2018 - Best of Panama (BOP) Competition - Natural Geisha Category 13th Place (Baby Geisha)
• 2017 - Best of Panama (BOP) Competition - Washed Geisha Category 12th Place (Baby Geisha)
• 2016 - Best of Panama (BOP) Competition - Natural Geisha Category 15th Place (Baby Geisha)
• 2015 - Best of Panama (BOP) Competition - Washed Geisha Category 9th Place (Finca Maunier)
• 2015 - Best of Panama (BOP) Competition - Traditional Natural Category 7th Place (Berlina Organico Natural)
• 2014 - Best of Panama (BOP) Competition - Traditional Natural Category 2nd Place (Berlina Orgánico Natural)
• 2013 - Best of Panama (BOP) Competition - Washed Geisha Category 16th Place (Baby Geisha)
• 2013 - Best of Panama (BOP) Competition - Natural Geisha Category 5th Place (Baby Geisha)

FrontStreet Coffee Recommended Brewing

• Dripper: Hario V60
• Water Temperature: 90°C
• Grind Size: Fuji Royal grinder setting 3.5
• Brewing Method: Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, 15g of grounds. First pour: 25g of water, 25s bloom. Second pour: inject to 120g of water, then stop. Wait until the water level in the coffee bed drops to halfway, then continue pouring slowly until reaching 225g of total water. Extraction time around 2:00.

Analysis: A three-stage pour makes it easy to separate the front, middle and back end flavors of the coffee. Because the V60 has so many ribs and drains quickly, pausing the pour helps stretch out the extraction time.

Flavor: Nuts, toast aroma, apricot, caramel, cane sugar sweetness, maple syrup sweetness, solid body, cocoa, chocolate aftertaste.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

With honey processing, a medium-light Typica and a flavor set of nuts, toast, apricot and caramel, this Panama lot sits close to the FrontStreet Colombia Huila Coffee. The Huila is washed and given a medium-dark roast, which pulls out dark chocolate and a nutty sweetness with medium oils and a full, rounded body, and it is comfortable in a pour-over, a French press, a moka pot or an espresso machine. If you want the fruit side pushed further forward, the FrontStreet Colombia Frontera Estate Xizhua is anaerobic natural and medium-light roasted, bringing passion fruit, grape, apricot and dried fruit. For milk drinks, the FrontStreet Specialty Blend adds Brazil's creamy nut character to Colombia's dark chocolate.