Flannel Shirts

I have to admit that when we were preparing to move to the tropics the last thing I thought about was flannel shirts.  In fact I took all my flannel shirts to Goodwill.   But here in Boquete in the evening and in the early morning I live in flannel shirts. 

Fortunately they are pretty easy to come by and surprisingly inexpensive.  Panama is the “end of the line” for clothing.  If it doesn’t sell at T.J. Maxx it is bundled up and sent in a container to Panama.  Which is why you will see Indians picking coffee wearing shirts that read “Stanford” and “Harvard”.  On the way to Panama City is a huge store called “Ropa Americana” where much of the remainder clothing from the US ends up, most of it still with the original US price tags.  It’s my favorite stop when driving to Panama City to hop a plane to Fort Lauderdale.  The last trip I needed a new bathing suit.  (The chlorine in ship pools wrecks havoc on bathing suits!)  $5.  My Hawaiian shirts run me $1.50 to $15 for a Tommy Bahama.  Anyway, I bought a dozen flannel shirts for $8 each (still with the Kohl’s price tag on them for $24).  I gave half to my brother who lives in town, and kept half.

Boquete is about 3,400 feet and our new house in Palmira is about 4,100 feet.  And although we are in the tropics (Latitude 8.75N Longitude 82.45W) it is our elevation that makes it cool when the sun goes down.  Last night it got down to 60 degrees, and now, at 6AM it is 61 degrees.    It can get down as low as 52 degrees at night.  But our maximum temperature midday with the sun out is usually in the upper 70s.  Year round!  Pretty much perfect if you ask me.

It is perfect for growing our fantastic Boquete coffee!!  And there is nothing better early in the morning to sit in my flannel shirt, drinking our own coffee and listening to the cacophony of birds.  And this year promises to be a great coffee harvest.  Are trees are laden with beautiful green coffee cherries.

Speaking of Boquete coffee . . .

Speaking of coffee, a number of you have asked if we sell our coffee.  We do, but we sell it mostly to the large producers in Boquete.  The cost of shipping anything to the US is so prohibitive that it prevents us for selling and mailing our own coffee.  However, you can still get real Boquete coffee.  Our friends at Coffee Ruiz, a family operation, do have an outlet for their coffee in the US.  Ruiz is excellent coffee!  Before we were producing our own it’s all we drank.  And we use Ruiz to roast our own supply.  Ruiz has two processing plants just down the hill from us in Palmira.   Believe me, once you start drinking really excellent coffee, you won’t want to go back to ordinary.

Cafe Ruiz US ordering  - Prices are very competitive with fine coffees you would find in Trader Joe’s or Starbucks and this is the real, unadulterated thing! 

Since the late 1800’s, three generations of the Ruiz family have been dedicated to the traditional coffee varieties and natural-system growing methods characteristic of excellent coffee flavor and nature preservation.

What was once a single farm in Boquete, is now a family owned and operated coffee crafting enterprise in Panama. Casa Ruiz, S.A. not only grows coffee and processes the green coffee beans for exports but also roasts and packs 7% of it under its trademark CAFE RUIZ.

In addition to our farms, over three hundred small-scale family farms partner with Casa Ruiz, S.A. to process, roast and market their coffee. The headquarter is located in the Boquete Valley at the skirts of the Baru Volcano, in the western side of Panama.

Much of the coffee in the world is grown using the monoculture technique of clearing the land by cutting all the trees and planting high production hybrid coffee varieties. Casa Ruiz, S.A. and its partner family farms choose to follow the Boquete’s traditional way: the environment-friendly or nature-system grown technique; coffee that is grown according to the natural surroundings demands. While this type of growing coffee does not produce a high yield, the combination of shade trees and coffee plants provides many advantages:

Biodiversity is created per each type of geographical location.

Soil quality is maintain and improved.

The traditional, more flavorful, non-hybrid and shade loving coffee varieties, known as Typica, can be grown.

The trees provide a natural food supply for birds and beneficial insects.

Migratory and resident bird habitat is provided.

The tree canopy provides mulch for the coffee to grow.

The use of chemicals is greatly reduced or eliminated.

People, as key actors, learn to understand sustainability through observation of natural systems per geographical location.

To consistently supply the highest quality coffee, only the ripe, red coffee cherries are picked. Casa Ruiz, S.A. processes the coffee beans by cultivation altitude, coffee variety (typica or hybrid type), bean size, and bean quality. Each batch of coffee is then labeled and stored. CAFE RUIZ is a result of taking those beans and roasting them to develop their well appreciated cup characteristics.

Cafe Ruiz is dedicated to crafting the most consistently flavorful coffee possible, to maintaining a healthy natural environment and to the sustainability of the farms and region. This is a direct contribution to the efforts of the Boquete Community to keep the valley as green as it was left from generations past.