Richard Detrich’s Boquete, Panama Weblog

People are always curious about our little coffee farm and the processs of growing and harvesting coffee.  So here’s a coffee primer that hopefully will help you appreciate the cup you are savoring!

Coffee growing has long been a way of life in Boquete, Panama.  Coffee growing in Boquete has been like grape growing in Napa.  Boquete has many microclimates, again similar to Napa, and this produces coffee beans with different taste characteristics.  The real estate boom in Boquete has caused vast coffee fincas to be sold off for real estate development.  It is imperative that some of the traditional Boquete way of life be preserved.  Coffee was first brought to Boquete over 100 years ago by a retired English sea captain who met and married a Panamanian. 

All of our coffee is shade grown, high altitude (4,000 feet), and grown in an environmentally sensitive way. treating our workers fairly.  Our family farm is high on the slopes of Volcan Baru, our local volcano that last showed any activity 500 years ago, but has left behind wonderful volcanic soil.  The soil, altitude, and rainfall combine to make an area for excellent coffee growing. 

Coffee blooms twice a year within a few months, so you have two crops growing simultaneously, which leads to a long harvest season.  Coffee flowers smell like orange blossoms, so during the bloom the farm is wonderfully fragrant.

Alfonso, our Ngobe Bugle Indian farm worker, picking coffee.  Coffee cherries ripen over a 5-month period and must be carefully harvested by hand.

Our daughter, Rebecca, decided to try her hand picking coffee. Alfonso’s son, Evangelisto, gives our daughter advice.

“OK, so I’m a beginner!”

After 1.5 hours, Rebecca picked 1/8 of a “lata” which would earn her 15 cents.  Experienced Ngobe Bugle Indians pick about a lata an hour for which they make $1.50.  Each tree produces about a lata of cherries which ends up as 4-5 pounds of green coffee beans.

Coffee cherries when picked begin to ferment in 24 hours, so each days harvest must be taken to the “beneficio” or processing plant daily.

Cherries are measured out into a “Lata”, which is the official measure for coffee cherries. Each cherry contains two or three seeds which are the coffee beans. 

The peg board is the traditional, time-honored way of counting the number of lattas being delivered.

Cherries are fermented in large vats until the moment when the cherry hull is just starting to soften and deteriorate.  Too long a fermentation can destroy the bean.

The fermented cherries flow into this machine which grinds off the hull, leaving only the beans.

Wood-fired dryers dry the coffee beans.  Wood comes from trimming all the shade trees on the farm.  Too much shade is not good, so trees need frequent trimming.

Traditional drying in the sun, sometimes difficult in Boquete because of all the rain.

The sorting machine shakes the beans to separate them by size and quality grade.

We thought we’d try drying some coffee the traditional way in our driveway.  Spot first thought it looked like puppy chow, then thought it was just for her to play in!

Now the bean get to rest for several months.  Then are put through one more process to pound off the dried “parchment” covering the bean.

Traditionally the parchment covering was removed by pounding the beans by hand.  Now a machine does the job.

Traditionally after pounding the coffee beans were tossed into the air to let the wind blow away the chaff.

Green beans ready for weighing and shipping.

Green beans are roasted to perfection.  There is very little money in growing coffee.  The money comes in after roasting, when the coffee is sold for $3 a cup!

Our farm worker and the house we built for him on our farm.  We took a little flak from some neighbors who thought this was “too good for an Indian.”

Tasting Boquete coffee after roasting . . .

 

Perfect coffee - shade grown, high altitude, environmentally friendly.  Any way you like it: ready for sipping - ah, perfection!

Our kids, visiting from the States . . . well, it is a family business . . .

When you purchase coffee you make consumer decisions that not only affect the quality of your cup, but the quality of life on our shrinking planet.   On cruises when I lecture about our “Vanishing Rainforest” I point out the comparison between the mass market Brazilian robusta coffeegrown on vast farms hacked out of Amazon rainforest, and the gourmet, high-altitude Arabica coffee from Panama.  Not only does our coffee taste better, it is better for the environment. 

For comparison, here’s a Brazilian coffee farm and a Boquete coffee farm.

  

And here’s a Brazilian coffee picker and a Boquete coffee picker.