| Third Leg - Panama |
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 Cupping in Panama We were lucky enough to stay at the house of Rafael Amar at Bambito. Anyway, we walked the entire farms of both, including the top of Finca Carmen Estate where our 1750 Carmen Reserve lot is grown. It is so beautiful gazing down the hillside, even while sucking air to stay with a farmer who does it every day.
From Volcan, we traveled to Boquette with Wilford of Elida Estate . One thing you learn about farmers in Panama is they love to cup. Wilford is probably the mad scientist of the bunch. He is always cupping, experimenting, cupping, more experimenting, and cupping again. He cups each varietal, each area of the farm, different processing, everything. Based on our cupping, the best on the table was a reserve lot that came to be known as Gringos Reserve because myself with other three other US roasters all like this lot. Included in the bunch are our friends from back East who scored 95 points from CoffeeReview.com last year with this reserve lot.
Next we stopped to visit Ricardo at Kotowa. Ricardo, like Wilford, always cups. Ricardo separates every days picking into a different lot. His top lots generally come from his Duncan Organic and this year was no exception. We cupped 30 coffees on 3 tables and the best of all was lot 37 on table #2. While most of Ricardo's coffee was bought by our friend Aleko with Stumptown, we were able to get a few bags and now have this great Panama Organic again.
No visit to Panama would be complete without visiting Daniel Peterson at Esmeralda. We were lucky to also visit with his sister Rachel and cup lot after lot of Geisha. Another great year. They were kicking the idea around of an all Esmeralda Auction and as we now know, thats exactly what happened. During the auction we were the lucky winners of Esmeralda Lot 9 , picked later in the season when the fruit was fully ripe and delicious. This should be available by the end of July.
That's four coffees from Panama alone. But that's not all. Remember how I mentioned that Wilford of Elida Estate is a mad scientist? Well he experimented with a natural and honey coffee. After cupping we loved the Elida Honey coffee. More about that later. That makes 5 coffees from Panama, all unique, all different, and all great.
Kotowa Duncan Organic Elida Honey |
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