How to Brew Panama El Burro Estate Natural Geisha Coffee Beans for Best Flavor?

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Most coffee estates are named after their owners or carry certain symbolic meanings. Today, FrontStreet Coffee would like to introduce Panama's El Burro Estate. The naming of this estate is similar to why FrontStreet Coffee is called FrontStreet Coffee—because our store is located on Frontsteet Street, so we're called FrontStreet Coffee. Yes, it's just that simple. The same goes for El Burro Estate. Because the original location of the estate was used for raising livestock, the owner named it El Burro (meaning "donkey" in Spanish) after planting coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee - El Burro Estate Natural Geisha Coffee Beans

Region: Boquete, Panama

Estate: El Burro Estate

Altitude: 1700-2000m

Processing: Natural Process

Variety: Geisha

Grade: SHB

Boquete Region

The Boquete region is Panama's oldest and most famous coffee-producing area, also the country's premier production zone and one of the world's best environments for coffee cultivation. Located on the eastern side of Baru Volcano at an elevation of approximately 1,000-2,000 meters, the Boquete plateau faces the gentle, romantic sea breeze from the Caribbean while being shielded from the cold Atlantic night air at its back, featuring high and steep mountains.

Among these areas, the "Baru Volcano National Park" serves as an ecological conservation zone with rich biodiversity, featuring seven microclimates. Perennially shrouded in mist with abundant rainfall, these conditions create excellent growing environments that give Boquete coffee its unique aroma and produce one-of-a-kind coffee. During each harvest season, coffee farmers primarily use washed or natural processing methods for drying, resulting in full coffee beans with pure flavors. Through cupping coffees from different areas of the Boquete region, FrontStreet Coffee has found that flavors can range from nutty to fruity aromas with subtle acidity, making them incredibly rich.

El Burro Estate

This piece of paradise where El Burro Estate sits is located on the southern foothills of Baru Volcano in Panama, above the town of Portrerillos, at an altitude of 1,700-1,800 meters. From El Burro Estate, one can see the Atlantic Ocean. The estate itself is very small, only 5 hectares, making it a micro-estate.

Don't be fooled by this small estate—the soil and growing environment are exceptionally high quality. The hillside was originally covered with pristine forest, with tall trees providing the best shade-grown coffee environment. In some areas, the vegetation was so dense that sunlight couldn't penetrate, affecting coffee growth, so the estate had to clear overly dense thickets in the past two years to allow Geisha trees to grow fully. Due to its proximity to Baru Volcano, the volcanic ash from the 1550 eruption created high-quality volcanic soil. FrontStreet Coffee believes that besides potassium and phosphorus, the volcanic soil contains very high organic matter content, resulting in Geisha coffee with exceptionally rich and layered flavors.

El Burro Estate was established by Amado Boutet, the grandfather of the current Lamastus family heir Wilford Lamastus. When global coffee prices were depressed, the grandfather's family could only sell large portions of their coffee estates. Wilford and his brother Patrick Lamastus couldn't bear to see their family's coffee estates sold off, so they purchased El Burro Estate to continue operations. Although the management process was challenging—even requiring additional income from other jobs—Mr. Wilford never gave up on this coffee estate. Persistence pays off, and starting from 2015, El Burro Estate's coffee beans have repeatedly achieved outstanding results in the BOP competition.

Coffee Variety

This batch of beans obtained by FrontStreet Coffee uses the Geisha variety. The Geisha variety was first discovered in 1931 when a group of botanists on an expedition to southwestern Ethiopia found Geisha coffee seeds in a pristine forest, then brought the seeds to Kenya where they were grown in nurseries; later they spread to Kenya and Tanzania.

In 1953, the Costa Rican research institution CATIE obtained some Geisha seeds from Tanzania for research; in 1960, Pachi Serracin, the former owner of Panama's Don Pachi Estate, brought Geisha to Panama from Costa Rica. However, due to its low yield, Geisha remained obscure in a small corner of Panama's coffee-producing regions until 2004, when the owner of Hacienda La Esmeralda discovered the faint floral aroma hidden among the harvested coffee beans, which was captivating. After separately entering it in the BOP competition, it became famous overnight, and since then, Geisha coffee beans have shone brightly at the forefront of the specialty coffee industry.

Coffee Processing Method

After harvesting the fruits, the estate selects them and places them on sun-drying beds for drying. The coffee cherries are dried naturally, with their color changing from red to deep brown, taking 18-30 days for the complete drying process. After drying is complete, they are stored until the coffee beans are ready for shipment, when all dried fruit skin, pulp, and parchment layers are removed to extract the coffee beans. Unripe, overripe, and fermented beans are then sorted out to prepare for shipping.

FrontStreet Coffee believes that the advantage of this natural processing method is that it completely eliminates off-flavors from contact with soil, while also improving the efficiency of coffee cherry drying and better presenting the coffee's original fruit flavors. This work improves the overall cupping quality and consistency after roasting.

FrontStreet Coffee Roasting Records

FrontStreet Coffee's roaster uses a Yangjia 800N semi-direct fire roaster with 300g batch size. When the drum temperature reaches 160°C, the beans are loaded with the damper set at 3 and heat at 130; the turnaround point occurs at 1'40", when the drum temperature reaches 140°C, heat is adjusted to 110 and damper opened to 4; at this point, the bean surface turns yellow and grassy aroma completely disappears, entering the dehydration phase. When the drum temperature reaches 166°C, heat is reduced to 80 with damper unchanged; at 176°C, it's further reduced to 50 with damper unchanged.

At 6'50", ugly wrinkles and black spots appear on the bean surface, with the toasted bread aroma clearly transforming into coffee aroma, which can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this point, one must listen carefully for the sound of first crack. At 7'37", first crack begins, heat is reduced to 50, and damper adjusted to 5 (heat adjustment must be very careful—not so low that crackling stops). After first crack, develop for 1'30", then drop at 190°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 cups for cupping. Cupping water temperature is 94°C. Grind size is controlled to achieve 70%-75% pass-through rate on a #20 standard sieve (0.85mm). Ratio: 11.1g of coffee grounds to 200ml of hot water, i.e., 1:18.18, which extracts a concentration precisely within the 1.15%-1.35% Golden Cup range, with an immersion time of 4 minutes.

Dry Aroma: Fermented wine aroma

Wet Aroma: Sweet orange

Flavor: Fermented wine aroma, sweet orange, honey, berries, pineapple, cream, fruit tea, green apple

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Tips

Dripper: V60#01

Water Temperature: 91°C

Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15

Grind Size: Medium-coarse grind (80% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve)

Brewing Method: Three-stage extraction. Bloom with 30g of water for 30 seconds. Using a small water stream, pour in a circular motion to 125g for the first stage. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 225g and stop pouring. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed again, remove the dripper (timing starts from the bloom). Total extraction time is 2'02".

Brewing Flavor: Aroma of ginger flower, with flavors of citrus, honey, berries, and fermented wine upon entry. As the temperature decreases, pineapple-like sweetness gradually emerges, with the finish carrying sweet and sour notes of sweet orange.

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