2019 Best Panama BOP Coffee Auction Results Released! Characteristics and Stories of Panama Coffee Beans

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Record-Breaking Best of Panama 2019 Auction

At 12:48 AM Beijing time on July 17, 2019, the Best of Panama 2019 global auction concluded. The new "king of bids" – Elida Estate's "Anaerobic Slow-Dried Natural Green Tip Geisha" (Elida Geisha Green Tip Natural ASD) – achieved a final price of $1,029 per pound, breaking last year's auction price record of $803 per pound, also set by Elida Estate! This became the highest auction price in the history of Best of Panama (BOP) coffee. FrontStreet Coffee also acquired a Geisha coffee bean from the same altitude, same plot, and same processing method as the BOP champion. Let's now examine how this bean performs.

FrontStreet Coffee – Elida Estate Low-Temperature Slow-Dried Natural Geisha Coffee Beans

Region: Boquete, Panama

Estate: Elida Estate

Altitude: 1,900 meters

Variety: Geisha

Processing Method: Anaerobic Fermentation Low-Temperature Slow-Dried Natural

Premium Geisha – The Glory of Best of Panama (BOP)

As the world's first green bean competition, the emergence of BOP can be seen as a strategic move by Panama's specialty coffee industry in the coffee market of that time. Through this successful strategic move, Panama carved out a blue ocean focused on quality victory. In 1995, seven coffee-producing families in Panama jointly established the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama (SCAP); in 1996, they founded the first Panama green bean competition – Best of Panama (BOP).

Compared to previous years, the most interesting change in this year's BOP was the grouping: in past years, categories were distinguished by natural and washed processing methods, but this year they were divided into Processed and Washed groups. Inspired by last year's BOP championship and high auction prices, many Panamanian producers began hoping to improve coffee quality through different processing methods, even inviting processing experts from other regions for guidance.

Therefore, the competition featured many coffees processed with special methods such as lactic acid fermentation, carbon dioxide maceration, and yeast treatment. It became difficult to generalize this group with the term "natural." From a perspective of keeping up with the times, the competition decided to classify all coffees processed with non-traditional washed methods into the "Processed" category. For example, this year's new bid king – lot number GNEP-01, Elida Geisha Green Tip Natural – explained in detail that the processing method used the NATURAL-ASD (Anaerobic Slow-Dried) technique, which was just mastered this year, ultimately creating a record high score of 95.25 points in the BOP competition. In summary, the 2019 BOP was divided into five categories: Geisha Processed, Geisha Washed, Traditional Varieties Processed, Traditional Varieties Washed, and Pacamara.

Just like in 2018, Elida Estate coffee beans were again the biggest winners in the 2019 BOP auction. In the previous BOP green bean competition, two coffees from Elida Estate achieved the highest scores in their respective categories, winning championships in both Geisha Processed (95.25 points) and Geisha Washed (95.00 points) categories, making Elida Estate the "double champion" of BOP once again. Among the 49 BOP auction lots this year, there were 18 lots of natural processed Geisha, with the highest transaction price being the Geisha Processed category champion – Elida Estate's "Anaerobic Slow-Dried Natural Green Tip Geisha" (Elida Geisha Green Tip Natural ASD), with a final price of $1,029 per pound, approximately 7,079 RMB per pound.

The 2019 BOP global auction had participants from 24 countries and regions, with 197 international buyers participating in the bidding. This not only created a record for the most participants but also achieved the highest average transaction price of $100.70 per pound in history. In today's environment of continuously declining international coffee prices, Panama coffee has successfully encouraged coffee growers by opening up a quality blue ocean.

Introduction to Elida Estate

More than half of Elida Estate's area is located within the protected zone of Baru Volcano National Park in Panama. Baru Volcano is one of the highest volcanoes in Central America, with 14,000 hectares and seven different climate zones. Elida Estate is a rare ultra-high altitude estate in Central America, with coffee cultivation ranging from 1,670 to 1,850 meters above sea level, making it one of the two highest altitude coffee estates in Panama. (The other estate with such altitude is Carmen Estate, located in the Volcan Valley.) Elida Estate is the most well-known estate of the Lamastus family, founded in 1918. From the time Robert Lamastus, the founder of the Lamastus family's coffee estate, planted the first coffee tree, it has now gone through a century and witnessed the global popularization of specialty coffee.

In such a high-altitude environment, low temperatures cause a delay in the maturation period of coffee cherries – about a full month later than normal maturity. The fertile volcanic soil provides abundant nutrients for the coffee, and combined with the excellent microclimate brought by Baru Volcano, this enables Elida Estate to repeatedly achieve excellent results in cupping competitions. To this day, Elida Estate is still operated by descendants of the Lamastus family, including estate owner Mr. Wilford, his father Thatcher, and Wilford's son/fourth-generation successor Wilford Jr. Elida Estate primarily grows three varieties: Catuai, Typica, and Geisha. The estate's processing plant is located halfway up the mountainside, allowing coffee to be transported to the factory for processing immediately after picking to ensure the quality of the coffee cherries is not affected.

Coffee Bean Varieties

The Elida Estate low-temperature slow-dried natural coffee beans acquired by FrontStreet Coffee use the Geisha variety, including both Green Tip and Bronze Tip Geisha. The Green Tip Geisha variety is characterized by floral aromatics, strong acidity, and sweetness. In contrast, Bronze Tip Geisha primarily emphasizes weight and sweetness, with less prominent acidity. When FrontStreet Coffee received the green beans of this coffee, we noticed that the beans appeared yellowish-green and had aromas of snow pear, orange, and a light fermented scent.

Low-Temperature Slow-Dried Natural Processing

The harvested coffee cherries are placed in sealed containers for 4-5 days of fermentation, then thick layers of coffee cherries are spread on drying beds to allow slow drying. The low-temperature slow-dried natural processing method requires producers to invest more time and effort. With time as the nurturing factor, slow drying allows coffee cherries to develop optimal water activity during this process, which not only results in better flavor development but also enables the green beans to maintain longer storage during the harvest season cycle. However, this method not only depends on favorable weather conditions but also extends the time required for each batch's production, increasing the cost of green beans.

FrontStreet Coffee Roasting Records & Insights

When FrontStreet Coffee's roaster received this bean, they noticed that the coffee's bean size and density were medium, and it absorbed more heat during the roasting process with a relatively fast Maillard reaction. The air damper was opened when the beans began to turn yellow to develop more fermented aromatics and enhance its sweetness and balance.

Preheat the roaster to 160°C, add beans at 100% heat, air damper at 3. Return temperature at 1'42". When the roaster temperature reaches 146°C, open the air damper to 4. At 146°C, the bean surface turns yellow, and grassy aroma completely disappears. When the temperature reaches 166°C, reduce heat to 80, air damper unchanged. At 7'31", ugly wrinkles and black spots appear on the bean surface, toast aroma clearly transforms 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 8'28", first crack begins, reduce heat to 50, fully open air damper to 5. Develop for 1'45" after first crack, then discharge at 194.5°C.

FrontStreet Coffee Cupping Report

FrontStreet Coffee conducts cupping within 8-24 hours after roasting sample coffee beans. FrontStreet Coffee's baristas typically use 200ml ceramic cupping bowls. The water temperature used for cupping is 94°C. Grind size is controlled to achieve 70%-75% pass-through rate on a #20 standard sieve (0.85mm). Ratio: 11g of coffee powder to 200ml of hot water, i.e., 1:18.18, which extracts a concentration exactly within the golden cup range of 1.15%-1.35%, with a steeping time of 4 minutes.

Dry Aroma: Floral, berries

Wet Aroma: Apricot, peach

Flavor: Yellow pear, orange, guava, pomelo, apricot, honey, cream

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Insights

Dripper: Hario V60

Water Temperature: 90-91°C

Grind Size: Medium-fine grind (BG 6m: 80% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve)

Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15

FrontStreet Coffee's multi-stage brewing technique: Multi-stage extraction. 15g of coffee, bloom with 30g of water for 30 seconds. Using small water flow, pour in circular motion to 125g for the first stage. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 226g and stop. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed again, remove the dripper. (Timing starts from bloom.) Total extraction time is 1'50".

Brewing Flavor: Aromas of light fermentation and floral notes. Entry flavors of grapefruit, lemon, and guava, with honey sweetness in the mid-section, and black tea finish.

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee's private WeChat: kaixinguoguo0925

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473