Introduction to Panama Coffee Origin Harvest Time Characteristics and Geisha Variety Flavor Description

As the world's most expensive coffee beans, Geisha has now spread across the globe. Whenever specialty coffee is mentioned, Panamanian Geisha is always present. Before understanding Geisha coffee, let's first take a look at its famous stage: Panama.

What are Panama's coffee growing regions?

Panama is located in Central America, with coffee growing areas situated in the western part of the country: Boquet, Volcan, Santa Clara, and Piedra de Candela. Among these, Boquet and Volcan are the most commonly heard specialty coffee regions. Both regions are located in Chiriquí Province, perfectly situated in the center of the coffee belt, possessing fertile volcanic soil and ancient forests.

Boquet is one of the towns in Chiriquí Province, located near the border between Panama and Costa Rica, close to the famous Barú Volcano. It features beautiful scenery and abundant, fertile soil. Facing the warm, humid monsoon winds from the Caribbean Sea, with cold currents from the Atlantic behind it, the mountains are high and steep. The "Barú Volcano National Park" serves as an ecological conservation area with rich biodiversity, featuring seven microclimates. Coupled with year-round mist coverage and abundant rainfall, this creates excellent coffee growing conditions, and many outstanding estates have been established here, such as Hacienda La Esmeralda, Elida Estate, and Duncan Estate.

The Volcan region is known for its extremely high altitude, with coffee growing at approximately 2000-3000 meters. Early on, most economic crops were fruits, with coffee cultivation representing only a very small minority. The most representative example is the Hartmann family. The Volcan region receives less annual rainfall than Boquet, and due to its geographical location on the west side of Barú Volcano, combined with cultivation alongside various fruits, the coffee exhibits stronger fruit flavors, sweetness, and aroma.

What are the characteristics of Geisha varieties grown in Panama?

The globally popular Panamanian Geisha coffee presents rich and elegant floral aromas, citrus, peach, and complex fruit acidity in the cup, with a creamy, smooth mouthfeel and a finish carrying the sweet fragrance of oolong tea. Its exquisite flavor expression makes one feel as if they're not drinking coffee, but tasting a cup of fragrant fruit tea. As FrontStreet Coffee mentions in many articles, coffee as an agricultural product always has flavor expressions closely related to factors such as variety, climate, altitude, soil, and management. It is a natural and true expression of the variety and local terroir, while post-processing methods and roasting should maximize the preservation, restoration, and presentation of their most authentic flavors. Therefore, Geisha's excellence is inseparable from the combination of all the above factors.

Compared to other Arabica varieties, Geisha not only has low fruit yield but also particularly fragile plants, and it is quite picky about its growing environment. It requires high altitude, fertile soil, cloud cover or plant shade, and cannot be exposed to direct sunlight. The leaf system of Geisha coffee trees is very thin, meaning photosynthesis efficiency is low, and the roots are fragile, with slow absorption of water and nutrients. Therefore, coffee production is very low. Coupled with the high-altitude growing environment, fruit maturation time is also relatively late. A Geisha coffee tree yields only half the fruit of a Catura variety, which is one of the reasons why Geisha is so precious.

The "discoverer" of Geisha, the owner of Hacienda La Esmeralda, once said that the estate needs many shade trees to protect the delicate Geisha from direct sunlight, and traditional pruning methods must be adopted during the initial planting period, otherwise the plants easily die. Geisha planted at higher altitudes requires longer fruit maturation time, resulting in more complex and unique flavor expressions. Geisha cherries must be harvested at the most appropriate level of ripeness and immediately undergo post-processing. This poses a great test for the estate owner's professional judgment and the estate's labor quality; failing to seize the right timing will lead to quality degradation and waste.

FrontStreet Coffee's Washed Boquet Geisha Coffee

After Geisha became famous, major growing regions began competing to introduce and cultivate it. However, even with the same variety, different terroir and climate conditions produce coffee with different qualities and flavors. FrontStreet Coffee believes that Panama, as Geisha's place of origin, still maintains industry reputation for the Geisha coffee produced using mature cultivation techniques and processing methods. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee has launched a FrontStreet Coffee Geisha from the Boquet region, using washed processing, hoping to let everyone taste the classic Geisha flavor.

The washed process involves first putting selected coffee cherries into a depulper to initially remove the skin and pulp; placing the coffee beans with remaining pulp and mucilage into water to ferment for about 24 hours; after fermentation, putting the coffee beans with parchment into flowing water channels to wash away the pulp and mucilage; after washing, drying the coffee beans in the sun or using dryers to reduce the moisture content to about 12%; finally, removing the parchment from the coffee beans.

As one of the most traditional green bean processing methods, washing not only makes coffee production quality more stable but also allows Geisha to present higher clarity and fresher flavor profiles. After roasting, FrontStreet Coffee experiences Geisha's elegant white floral aromas, bright citrus and lemon acidity, with a slight green tea undertone, much like drinking a gentle Tieguanyin tea. How should such rich Geisha coffee be brewed to avoid waste?

FrontStreet Coffee's Brewing Recommendations

The flavor descriptions for each coffee at FrontStreet Coffee are based on freshly roasted beans. If the coffee beans have been stored for more than a month, some aroma may have been lost, making it difficult to restore during brewing. FrontStreet Coffee also understands the importance of freshness, so we ensure only coffee beans roasted within 5 days are shipped, allowing everyone to enjoy the complete flavor period upon receipt.

Panamanian Geisha coffee is world-famous for its rich floral aromas and complex fruit profiles. FrontStreet Coffee's roasters hope to preserve more of Geisha's quality acidity, therefore choosing medium-light roasting (with slight adjustments for different batches). This roast level doesn't significantly change the high hardness of beans grown at high altitudes, so brewing requires increasing the extraction rate to present fuller flavor layers. This involves using higher water temperature and slightly finer grind size to extract more aromatic compounds. Additionally, FrontStreet Coffee hopes Geisha coffee's flavor expression will be clearer, so we use a slightly larger coffee-to-water ratio of 1:16.

To increase Geisha coffee's extraction rate while avoiding over-extraction and highlighting sweet and sour flavor layers, FrontStreet Coffee's baristas use a V60 dripper. The V60 dripper features ribs connecting the top and bottom and a large circular hole at the center to accelerate water flow downward. The spiral-shaped exhaust groove design extends the water flow path, increasing contact time between coffee grounds and hot water. Each water flow converges along the grooves to the center point of the dripper, concentrating pressure on the coffee grounds and resulting in richer extracted coffee layers.

Below, FrontStreet Coffee demonstrates the daily brewing steps for our FrontStreet Coffee Jade Emerald Red Label Natural Geisha served in our stores. Everyone can refer to and compare with their own brewing approaches.

The hand-brew parameters for Red Label Geisha Coffee are: Dripper: V60, Water temperature: 91-92°C, Coffee amount: 15g, Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:16, Grind size: fine sugar size (sieved through #20 sieve to 80%)

First, pour 15 grams of coffee powder into the dripper and zero the scale. For the first pour, inject 30g of water for a 30-second bloom, starting the timer. Use a small water flow, starting from the center point and moving outward in circles, ensuring the entire coffee bed is moistened.

For the second pour, use a slightly larger water flow to inject 120g of water, aiming to raise the entire coffee bed. The water column needs to be poured vertically and evenly, with the timer scale showing 150g, completing around 55 seconds.

When the liquid level drops to about halfway, begin using a small water flow in small circles for the third pour of 90g. Try to control the water flow so it doesn't become too wide, which can easily scatter the coffee bed and cause under-extraction. The final total water injection is 240g, with drip completion time around 2 minutes and 10 seconds. After removing the dripper, shake the coffee liquid in the serving pot evenly before tasting.

The hand-brewed FrontStreet Coffee Panamanian Washed Boquet Geisha Coffee has clear citrus, lemon, and bergamot acidity, with a creamy smooth mouthfeel when swallowed, and a finish of green tea and honey sweetness.

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