Panama Coffee Bean Region - The Ever-Victorious Elida Estate Red Wine Process Typica

FrontStreet Coffee - Panama Elida Estate Red Wine Process Typica Introduction

Elida Estate

This farm's history reaches back to 1918, and it has belonged to the Lamastus family ever since. The name Elida comes from the wife of Robert Louis Lamastus, the owner at the time.

Elida Estate sits in the Alto Quiel area of Boquete, at an average altitude of 1,670-1,825 meters. That is close to the highest ground in all of Panama, making it a rare ultra-high-altitude estate in Central America, and part of the property lies inside Panama's Volcan Baru National Park. The farm is managed today by owner Wilford Lamastus. Elida has become an internationally renowned estate and a regular annual stop for many third-wave coffee companies in Europe and the United States, and it is a perennial winner at Best of Panama, taking first place in various BOP categories many times over. At the 2016 BOP it won first place in the washed Geisha category.

Elida Estate covers 65 hectares in total, more than half of it inside Baru Volcano National Park. Thirty hectares are planted with coffee trees, and the remaining 35 hectares are pristine forest. Coffee grows from 1,670 to 1,825 meters, making it one of the two highest coffee estates in Panama.

The rugged Baru is a young volcano rising more than 3,400 meters, and it is active; seven different microclimate zones surround it, creating an unusually rich and varied ecology. Elida Estate spans those zones, and the diversity cuts both ways. For Elida, the payoff is coffee with more intensity and a wider range of aromas than most Panamanian coffees. The ultra-high altitude has its costs too: because the difference between morning and evening temperatures is so large, a tree at Elida needs five years of care after planting before it can be harvested for the first time (in most producing regions it takes only three). Growth is slower, but that does a great deal for flavor development.

Panama Elida Estate Typica

Region: Boquete

Variety: Typica

Altitude: 1700m

Processing Method: Red Wine Process

Flavor Notes: Fruit wine, black plum, apricot, peach, dried longan, fermented rice wine

Knowledge Point: Arabica and Robusta are further divided into single-origin coffee and espresso based on how the beans are combined.

In Brief

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FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Elida's red wine process is one of Panamanian coffee's most distinctive experiments, and if that intensity draws you in, the same origin offers a very different kind of pleasure in its Geisha. The Boquete Geisha is the easiest place to begin, an entry-level Panamanian Geisha that shows the classic orange-blossom honey sweetness, oolong-tea body, fine fruit acidity, and clearly defined layers. From there, the Esmeralda line represents the top of the mountain. In 2003 the estate's owner discovered the variety on the farm and entered it in Best of Panama, where it stunned the judges with an average cupping score of 94.6 and broke the competition record, turning Geisha into the most wanted variety in the world almost overnight.

Esmeralda splits its Geisha into two tiers. The Red Label, officially Esmeralda Special, is grown at 1,600-1,800 meters, must cup above 90 points in every lot, and numbers each lot separately, with all the beans in a lot drawn from a single small plot so buyers can match a batch to their flavor preferences. The Green Label, originally Private Collection, blends several plots rather than highlighting one and delivers the estate's signature high-altitude Geisha character at a friendlier price. Ethiopia, where Geisha originated, is the other path: the Grana Gesha from the border of the Kochore and Grana Abaya areas of Yirgacheffe is hand-picked, dried on raised beds for 14-20 days, and roasted medium-light to show bright citrus, elegant ginger-lily florals, ripe-fruit sweetness, and a fine, silky finish. Geisha is a medium-light, floral-and-fruity coffee with a dense, hard bean, so grind to about 78% pass-through on a #20 standard sieve, brew at 91°C with 15 g of coffee and a 1:16 ratio in a small V60, and pour in three stages to finish in roughly 2:10-2:20.