Panama Berlina Estate Natural Process Typica Cold Brew Coffee Tutorial_Berlina Typica Brewing Guide

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style)

Coffee Information

• Country: Panama
• Name: Casa Ruiz Berlina Typica Natural
• Region: Boquete
• Grade: SHB
• Processing Method: Natural
• Altitude: 1600 meters
• Variety: Typica

Product Introduction

Casa Ruiz, a renowned Panama coffee cooperative established in 1979, is one of the most famous in the Boquete region of Baru Volcano. Headquartered in the valley at the volcano's foothills, the family business has passed through three generations and now counts over 300 small family farms and estates as cultivation, processing, and marketing partners. The member estates mostly have centuries of history, among them Berlina, Maunier, Panamaria, and Cafe Ruiz. Unlike cooperatives that sacrifice the environment to expand planting area for higher yields, Casa Ruiz and its partners follow Boquete's ancient traditions, cultivating traditional varieties in environmentally friendly ways. For high-quality beans, they still rigorously select, label, and preserve every detail, making them a perennial winner in the Best of Panama auction.

Flavor Description

Dried fruit, black tea, almond

Berlina Estate

Berlina Estate is located in Boquete, Panama's renowned coffee-producing region. This bean could be described as the first one that left a deep impression on me when I encountered specialty coffee. It was the first bean where I clearly tasted distinctive specialty flavors, the first with obvious recognition factor, and the first that let me experience high balance.

The volcanic soil and unique microclimate of the Boquete region create the perfect "timing" and "geography" for high-quality coffee. As one of the oldest coffee varieties, Typica has produced numerous specialty coffees and has always been the most favored main variety among growers, who have devoted tremendous effort to cultivating and selecting it.

Berlina Estate, at 1600 meters, is one of the estates under the world-renowned green bean supplier Casa Ruiz. The natural-processed Typica green beans produced here have uniform shape, even size, and consistent color. After roasting, the brewed coffee offers clean flavors, rich nutty notes, and excellent sweetness and balance.

Brewing Guide

How to Brew Panama Coffee [Berlina Estate Natural Typica]?

FrontStreet Coffee Pour-Over Reference:

Weigh 15g of [Berlina Estate Natural Typica] coffee powder and grind to a medium setting. The particles should be slightly coarser than table salt. We use a BG grinder setting of 5R (60% standard sieve pass rate), water temperature 90°C, and a V60 dripper for extraction.

Pour hot water from the pour-over kettle in clockwise circles centered on the middle of the dripper. Start timing when brewing begins. In 15 seconds, brew to 30g, then stop pouring. When the time reaches 1 minute, pour the second time. For the second pour, as before, pour in clockwise circles centered on the middle of the dripper. The water stream should not hit where the grounds meet the filter paper, to avoid channeling.

When you reach the outermost circle of grounds, leave one circle, then pour back toward the middle circle by circle. At 2 minutes 20 seconds, brew to 220g, and the brew is complete.

Cold Brew [Berlina Estate Natural Typica]

FrontStreet Coffee Cold Brew [Berlina Estate Natural Typica] Reference:

Panama [Berlina Estate Natural Typica], light to medium roast, BG grinder setting 4B, grind level 3, 20g beans, water temperature 87°C, bloom for 3 minutes, Chemex pot, then cold brew with ice water, total water volume 200ml.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Panama's growing regions sit in the west of the country—Boquete, Volcan, Santa Clara, and Piedra de Candela—with Boquete and Volcan the ones heard most often in specialty circles. Both lie in Chiriqui Province, squarely in the coffee belt, with fertile volcanic soil and ancient forest, and Boquete's mountains are often wrapped in cloud, humid by day and cool by night. If you are tasting Panama specialty coffee for the first time, FrontStreet Coffee's Boquete Geisha is a good entry point: an estate-level Geisha planted at 1600 meters, whose rich volcanic-ash soil feeds a fragrant cup of jasmine florals, green tea, honey, citrus, and orange.

For a more accessible take on that Geisha character, FrontStreet's Panama washed Butterfly is made up of Geisha, Caturra, and Catuai and thus carries half Geisha pedigree, grown in Boquete's Baru Volcano area. Panama's particular microclimate brings abundant rain and a wide day-night temperature swing, and with the region's volcanic-rock soil plus careful picking and meticulous processing, this coffee performs well in body, citrus acidity, and Geisha's jasmine aroma—equally suited to pour-over and cold brew. For the highest grades, FrontStreet's Emerald Estate Red Label is harvested from single-plot Geisha above 1700 meters and must cup at 91 points, showing a refined orange-honey character, while the Emerald Estate named Diamond Mountain comes from two of the estate's four independent farms, Jaramillo and Canas Verdes, and centers on Caturra and Catuai; its volcanic soil and old-forest shade yield rich fruit aroma and sweetness, making it one of the estate's most popular labels besides Geisha.