Sweet Maria’s was one of 7 companies that shared the winning lot of coffee in the 2004 PanamaPanama coffee ranges from medium quality lower altitude farms to those at 1600 - 1800 meters centered in the area of Boquete in the Chirqui district near the... ...more Coffee Competition. The coffee sold at a record price for any auction, and there was good reason why based on the unique cup character. The coffee is grown on a farm called Jaramillo operated by the well-known FincaSpanish 101: Finca is the Spanish word for farm. Sometimes the term Hacienda is used to imply an Estate, which would mean the farm has its own wet-mill.... ...more Esmeralda and the Peterson family. The coffee has an extraordinary character, quite out of place for a Panama, that comes from a combination of a unique environment, high altitude, and a little-known CoffeaThe botanical genus colloquially referred to as the “coffea genus,” which is comprised of over 120 individual species. These are generally opposite-leaved, evergreen shrubs or small understory trees... ...more ArabicaArabica refers to Coffea Arabica, the taxonomic species name of the genus responsible for around 75% of the worlds commercial coffee crop.: Arabica refers to Coffea Arabica, the... ...more cultivarCultivar is a term used interchangeably with Varietal in the coffee trade to indicate plant material, although there are distinctions.: The naming of a cultivar should conform to... ...more called GeishaGesha is a long-bean Ethiopia selection with unique cup character. Gesha is the name of the town in Western Ethiopia where the original samples were collected. Spelling it... ...more. By appearance and cup character, I suspect Geisha (correct spelling is actually Gesha) has an Ethiopian lineage – there are extraordinary floralFloral notes in coffee exemplify the connection between taste and smell. Describing the taste of a specific flower is near impossible...we always default to “it tastes like it... ...more and herbalA flavor descriptor in coffee reminiscent of herbs, usually meaning aromatic, savory, leafy dried herbs. Usually, more specific descriptions are given, whether is is a floral herb, or... ...more qualities in the cup that are reminiscent of Yirgacheffe.
There is a very limited supply of this coffee! I am not sure if it will be gone by the time I write a traditional review for it. And it is very spendy too, similar to the price of the Isle of Saint Helena coffee, then most expensive we have offered up until now. This coffee is deserving of a very high price; it is a limited supply, extremely unique, a rare coffee cultivar “Geisha”, and an outstanding cup. The cup character of this coffee is not only unique among Panamas, it is unique among all Central American coffees, with floral aromatics, a fresh citrus flower brightnessA euphemistic term we use often to describe acidity in coffee. A bright coffee has more high, acidic notes. : A euphemistic term to describe acidity in coffee.... ...more, light-body, herbal and honeyed cup. It’s a very buoyant coffee, lively and not overbearing. You will notice a very unusual long seed shape, much like “longberry Harar” but this is a fully wet-processed coffee. You don’t want to roast this too light – it is quite bright and easily turns too sourish with a City roastCity roast is what we define as the earliest palatable stage that the roast process can be stopped and result in good quality coffee. City roast occurs roughly... ...more. I prefer City+City+ roast is an ideal roast level that occurs roughly between 425 and 435 degrees Fahrenheit in many coffee roasters with a responsive bean probe where First Crack... ...more and darker. The best cup I had was a melangeA blend containing a coffee that has been roasted to a different levels (or steps) - light to dark.: A blend containing a coffee that has been roasted... ...more – a blend of two roasts. I did a Full City+ with a few snaps of 2nd crackAn audible popping sound heard during roasting. In coffee, one refers to "first crack" and "second crack," which come from two different classes of chemical reactions.: An audible... ...more, and a City+ roast. Rested a couple of days, this cup was awesome and had better bodyAssociated with and sensed by mouthfeel, body is sense of weight and thickness of the brew, caused by the percentage of soluble solids in the cup, including all... ...more and more depth. This is a good technique with air roasts especially; drum roasts develop body and depth a little more and might not need this – I am waiting for a HottopA home drum roaster with a 9oz capacity, adjustable heat and airflow profiling, and an external cooling tray.: A home drum roaster with a 9oz capacity, adjustable heat... ...more roast at City+ to “mature” a couple of days, and see how it cups.
We have had problems in the past with setting aside special coffees like this for customers, which then go unclaimed. So unfortunately you need to get this soon to get it at all. We have already packaged 131 1 lb. bags and I would guess it will last 7 to 10 days, that’s all! We are being really strict about the 1 lb. limit. The idea is to get this coffee spread around to as many people as possible! We also have the #2 coffee, Leru, coming. It is in the reasonable 5.50-6.00 range and it is really good! It will last longer because we have 8 bags of it, and won’t put any crazy restrictions on it like the Jaramillo. -Tom
Below is an interview from Coffee Network dot com done by my respectable coffee broker Scott Reed with the farm’s owner, Price Peterson:
Scott Reed The 1st place coffee in the Panama cuppingCupping is a method of tasting coffee by steeping grounds in separate cups for discrete amounts of ground coffee, to reveal good flavors and defects to their fullest.... ...more competition sold this week at an SCAA auction record of $21.00 per pound. I asked Price Peterson, the owner of the Esmeralda and Jaramillo Estates about this amazing coffee. First off, how do you feel about the results? (Tom’s note: the coffee was auctioned reached $21 per lb, and will need to offer it at about $25 or $26 per Lb. to cover costs and our modest margin.)
Price: Basically, we are all sort of numb still. We had hoped for $4-5, thinking that $7 would be a miracle. When it hit $15 I called Malcolm Stone. He too was in shock and convinced he had a hacker who had penetrated his system and was frantically trying to do a fix, including shutting down the bidding for several minutes. When I called back later, he was back to cool, having talked with the bidder. I concur with your comment below it is a great coffee, probably one of a kind for CA and not typical of Boquete. Yields in the small very high valley where this grows are only about half that of a normal caturraCatimor is a broad group of cultivars derived from a Hibrido de Timor (HdT) and Caturra cross, highly productive, sometimes with inferior cup flavor. The main issue is... ...more or catuaiCatuai is a high-yield Arabica cultivar resulting from a cross of Mundo Novo and yellow Caturra. The tree is short, with lateral branches forming close angles to the... ...more thus, as a commercial volume coffee it is limited. As a special coffee within the Specialty realm, it seems ideal. I believe that is what the buyers saw. To quote Ted Lingle things that taste good are hard to grow and this is an excellent case in point. But back to how we feel. WE feel great. This sale made the front page of our most distinguished national newspaper and I think Daniel had to buy drinks for half the Province. It has been wonderful for Boquete the town that adopted us and I think will get better.
Scott: How do you feel about the auction system? What do you see its role going forward? Do you think that over the years that the Boquete competition and auction have had a positive impact on not only the roaster’s opinion of Panama coffee but on prices being paid for all Panama coffee in general?
Price: I think the auction system has served the purpose that George Howell envisioned a marketing tool utilizing exemplary coffees. It has not served the purpose I envisioned educating the farmer to improve his product. Rather it has made it clear that unless he has the altitude, he will not be served by the system. We still need to see if it will move volumes as envisioned by CQI and the Q auction. Going forward I think we are facingFacing can mean turning toward, standing up to, being brave. But in coffee roasting though, it means scorching a roast.: Facing refers to scorch marks found on the... ...more judge fatigue which will be an increasing problem. We might all be better served by regional rather than national auctions i.e. a single So. American auction and a single Central American auction. I would also propose that we leave the internet format and make these live auctions. For Boquete (and Panama) the auction was a vehicle to get folks to come here. This was not a problem for Costa RicaCosta Rican coffee is typically very clean, sweet, with lots of floral accents. hey are prized for their high notes: bright citrus or berry-like flavors in the acidity,... ...more or GuatemalaGuatemalan coffee is considered a top quality coffee producer in Central America. Due to our proximity to Guatemala, some of the nicest coffees from this origin come to... ...more that had well-established links in the coffee world. Panama had to get on the map and the competition/auctions served this purpose, bring us from specialty coffeeSpecialty coffee was a term devised to mean higher levels of green coffee quality than average "industrial coffee" or "commercial coffee". At this point, the term is of... ...more obscurity to a place at the table in less than ten years. By bringing us to the specialty table, it also enhanced prices.
Scott: This was a very remarkable coffee, why do you think this is?
Price: Daniel and I are trying to figure this out. Most great coffees are a result of taking good coffee off the tree, processingThe removal of the cherry and parchment from the coffee seed.: Coffee is either wet-processed (also called washed or wet-milled) or dry-processed (also called wild, natural or natural... ...more well, and then a very vigorous bean selection involving not only density sortingA key step in preparing green coffee for export, density sorting is a step at the dry mill where coffee is run across a density table. Less dense... ...more, but also size sortingCoffee is sorted by size, density, and color in its preparation for export.: Sorting refers to several steps performed in the preparation of coffee for export. Coffee is... ...more, hand sortingPracticed around the world, with both wet processed and dry processed coffees, hand sorting is generally the final step in the preparation of specialty coffees. Whether on conveyor... ...more, color sortingSorting coffee by removing beans that have a color that indicates a defect. Color coffee sorting is often done by an optical sorting machine, which has a high... ...more, and using only coffee from the peak of the season. This might result in only 50% to 60% of the coffee harvested qualifying. Curiously, with our Jaramillo Special, we densityThe density of a coffee bean is often taken as a sign of quality, as a more dense bean will roast more with a better dynamic. The density... ...more sort and size sort above screen 16 that s all. About 85% to 90% of what comes off the tree qualifies. As I mentioned this coffee comes from a small cold valley at the uppermost (1600 meters) end of a 50 ha. farm and only represents about 3% of the farm production. One varietyA botanical variety is a rank in the taxonomic hierarchy below the rank of species and subspecies and above the rank of form (form / variety / subspecies... ...more of low yield, long internode coffee dominates the area. Is the remarkable cup the result of the micro-climate, or the coffee variety? We just don t know and this is my assignment for the coming harvest. In terms of climate, would you say this farm is outside the zone that would normally be considered ‘Boquete’?
Scott: More sun and warmer is it not?
Price: No, it’s pretty typical Boquete 3800 mm of rain, a lot of cloud during the rainy season, and a moderate dry season.
Scott: What is the ‘geisha’ variety? Is it a type of typica? Where did it come from?
Price: We are still puzzling that out. It is probably a BourbonA coffee cultivar; a cross between Typica and Bourbon, originally grown in Brazil: Mundo Novo is a commercial coffee cultivar; a natural hybrid between "Sumatra" and Red Bourbon,... ...more derivative full-sized tree. Probably came from EthiopiaEthiopia, formerly known as Abyssinia, or a coffee cultivar: Ethiopia, or more specifically the Empire under Haile Selassie, was known as Abyssinia. The name is Latin, derived from... ...more, although the Ethiopians I’ve asked have never heard of it!
Scott: Specialty coffee is an interesting business; this variety of coffee may not have been thought of as viable from a commercial coffee standpoint (too much character. outside of the expectations of a commercial buyer). However, taken on its own and shown to a specialty roaster, it is seen as something extremely desirable. Do you think this will impact what things farmers consider when planting/re-planting besides more practical considerations such as disease resistance and production volume?
Price: Scott, this is exactly the question we’ve been wrestling with for the past six months. Let me explain why. We bought the Jaramillo farm (about 50 ha. now in coffee) in 1997, mostly for the quality of coffee and its altitude. It was always known for a very slight citrus flavor, but not much more until the 2003/4 harvest. In January 2004 Daniel began cupping coffees from various parts of the farm testing the notion that rather than a general good cup, there might be an area with an intensely fine cup which was flavoring all the output of the farm when it was all mixed together. It turned out he was right. At the upper extreme of the farm, there was a very small valley that had the cup you know as Jaramillo Special and this was providing much of the flavor for the rest. When he separated out this upper coffee (about 3% of the total), that part was special the remainder, very good, but not with the intense cup you know. The bit of serendipity described above is an exercise I would recommend to many coffee farmers to see just what they have. Once we had done it, then arises the question do we plant the whole farm in a great coffee (hoping that the climate will support it) and hope for double the going price to compensate for half the production? Or, do we stay with a higher-yielding system as well as a cup profile known to buyers? As you can imagine, we are still wrestling with this problem. In coffee, with the long growth times at high altitudes, a decision such as this takes about 5 years to implement and several more in the market to find out if your decision was right or wrong. If wrong, you are out of business. Most farmers know this well, so I suspect they will be very willing to establish seed beds and then, wait and see for quite a while. In our case, we will most likely hedge our bet by producing mostly traditional profile good Boquete coffee as well as a somewhat expanded Jaramillo Special. In summary, coffee growing is pleasant, interesting, and sort of dull. Along comes an event like $21/lb coffee, and the dull disappears in a hurry. You don’t get rich from selling seven bags, but it sure is fun!
