FrontStreet Coffee Panama Hartmann Estate Caturra Red Wine Processed Premium Single Origin Black Coffee (Grindable)

Roaster: FrontStreet Coffee | Shelf life: 30 days | Net weight: 227g | Packaging: bulk | Roast level: medium

Country: Panama

Grade: SHG

Region: Volcán

Altitude: 1250–1700 meters

Process: wine (fermented) processing

Variety: Caturra

Estate: Hartmann Estate

Cup profile: smoked wood spice, berries, winey fruit aroma

Panama Hartmann Estate Caturra, Wine Processed

About Hartmann Estate

The story behind Hartmann is every bit as legendary as its coffee. Hartmann Estate sits in Santa Clara, in Panama's Chiriquí Province. Its founder, Alois St. Hartmann (Luis Hartmann), was born on June 20, 1891, in Moravia, then part of Austria-Hungary and now the Czech Republic, and died on May 25, 1970, at the age of 78.

When World War I broke out, he was abandoned as a young boy. With his mother's help he hid aboard a ship bound for Pennsylvania in the United States and survived. His two brothers both joined the military and were killed in the war. Luis drifted through several countries with friends until he reached Panama in 1911, settled in Chiriquí Province in 1912, and made his home around the Candela area, where he built the first small cabin in that primeval forest.

Today Hartmann Estate is a family business established by Ratibor Hartmann, Alois's son, in 1940. In 1966 Ratibor married Dinora Sandi from Costa Rica, and the couple raised five children: Ratibor Jr., Alan, Alexander, Alice, and Kelly. Each family member takes charge of a piece of the operation—farm management, harvesting and processing, or estate tours. A family that has been growing coffee for more than 100 years is a legend in its own right.

The family runs a professional cupping laboratory and sample-roasting room at the estate, and every lot of coffee cherries is cupped rigorously. That discipline keeps Hartmann's quality remarkably stable and drives their constant pursuit of improvement; their scientific approach, combined with nearly a century of family experience, underpins the estate's consistently excellent coffee.

This particular lot is Caturra processed by the wine method. From the moment it is ground, an intense fruit-wine aroma rises from the grounds, laced with fresh smoked-wood spice notes and the distinctive berry sweetness that natural processing brings—simply intoxicating on the nose. On the palate it opens into lush tropical fruit, like a cocktail carefully mixed from passion fruit, mango, orange, and berry juices with peach wine. No—this is a cocktail composed by nature itself.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Panama's coffee-growing zones lie in the west of the country—Boquete, Volcán, Santa Clara, and Piedra de Candela—with Boquete and Volcán being the most famous specialty regions. Both sit in Chiriquí Province, squarely in the heart of the coffee belt, on fertile volcanic soil beneath old-growth forest. If you are tasting Panamanian specialty coffee for the first time, FrontStreet Coffee recommends starting with its washed Boquete Geisha: an estate-level, entry-friendly Geisha grown at 1,600 meters, where rich volcanic-ash soil produces a fragrant cup with the jasmine florals, green tea, honey, citrus, and orange notes that only Geisha delivers. For a taste of Geisha heritage at a friendlier level, try FrontStreet's washed "Flower Butterfly" (Hua Hudie), a blend of Geisha, Caturra, and Catuai grown on the Barú volcano in Boquete, where abundant rain, a large day–night temperature swing, and volcanic soils give the coffee excellent body, bright citrus acidity, and jasmine aromatics—lovely both as pour-over and cold brew. And for the very top of the pyramid, FrontStreet offers Hacienda La Esmeralda's Red-label Geisha, harvested from a single 1,700-meter-plus plot and cupping at 91 points, with refined orange blossom and honey notes; the estate's Diamond Mountain lot (mainly Caturra and Catuai from the Jaramillo and Cañas Verdes farms) is another popular choice beyond Geisha, full of fruit aroma and sweetness.