Panama is a superstar in the coffee world, thanks to the Geisha variety, an Ethiopian landrace coffee that found its way across the ocean and into the fertile soil at Hacienda La Esmeralda. The coffee set record auction prices when it won the 2004 Best of Panama competition. At that time, it set records when the unroasted coffee was sold in bulk for $21/lb. Since then, Hacienda La Esmeralda broke this record several times, finally selling for $601.lb in 2016. But with other Panamanian farms growing Geisha, it wasn’t long before they too started to set records. Elida Estate would up the record to $803/lb in 2018 and then raise it again in 2019 to $1,029/lb. While it’s fantastic to see farmers grab such high prices for their efforts, the obsession with niche coffees means that lots of excellent coffee from talented farmers gets ignored if it’s not Geisha. Not to mention, the market for ultra-high-priced Geisha is small and competitive.
If you’re a specialty farmer in Panama, you’re going to grow Geisha. Because if you sell it, the profits are fantastic. It can’t be the only crop you sell, however. The market is only so big, and you want a diverse farm with multiple varieties of coffee. But people tend to associate Panama with Geisha coffee, which makes it a bit harder to market other varieties. This is a shame because Panama’s growing environment and pool of talented farmers result in some outstanding coffee.
We set out to find a coffee that exemplified many of the qualities that people appreciate from Geisha coffee without actually shipping a Geisha coffee. Geisha coffee tends to be intensely floral with stone fruit notes. After much searching (we’re talking over a year), we discovered the perfect coffee. Enter, the fantastic team at Finca Santa Teresa…
In August, we’re shipping an incredible, unique coffee from Finca Santa Teresa a boutique farm and mill harmoniously located within Panama’s cloud forest. This lot combines cherries from three plots on the farm: shade-grown Caturra, shade-grown Catuai on a very sunny mountainside, and Caturra that’s grown without shade on part of the mountain that receives very little sun. The coffee is graced by sweet and delicate notes of apricot and wild honey, and has fragrant, floral qualities, it exemplifies the sensibilities Panama is known for, even though it’s not a Geisha coffee. That’s not to say FST doesn’t farm Geisha, they’ve placed with their Geisha coffees in Best of Panama multiple times since 2005. We’re grateful to José Raúl Pittí and his talented team for this wonderful coffee.
