15. Panama - Boquete - Coffee Farm Tour

We attended a superb tour of a local Coffee Farm while in Boquete. Craig did an excellent job noting the highlights, so I'm offering his post here:

A highlight of our stay in Boquete was a tour of the original, now organic, Ruiz Coffee Plantation (one of the 11 owned by the Ruiz Coffee Co.). Most people associate Panama with the canal and shady off-shore banking (Panama Papers). But Panama grows the world's most expensive coffee beans, an Arabica variety called Geisha, priced at over $1000 per pound. This translates to about $75 a cup at retail. Boquete produces 50% of Panama's coffee at 600+ plantations.

Coffee harvesting and processing is a complex process. The coffee berry is a fruit, and there are two coffee beans per berry. After hand picking, the berries are submerged in water to determine which ones are insect infested (the floaters). Next, the outer-skin is removed. The sticky coffee beans are then fermented for a short time before drying and removal of 2 more skins. The beans then go to sorting for color, size, and shape (helps insure even roasting). Next, the green beans are aged and become ready for packaging for the coffee roasters. My apologies for lumping many of the steps into one general step!

Our tour guide, Carlos, has been with the Ruiz Coffee Co. for 23 years. We found his knowledge of the coffee growing, harvesting, processing, and roasting to be invaluable. "Coffee," Carlos says, "should be smooth tasting and not bitter." Good coffee does not need sugar, cream, or milk. Carlos continues, "Starbucks makes coffee drinks for people who do not like coffee!" Coffee's bitterness comes from "burning" the coffee bean during roasting. Dark roasted coffee is akin to charcoal. We viewed two packaged bags of roasted beans, one dark and one light. The darker roast bag had nearly 25% more volume of beans than the light roast, yet weighed approximately the same. No more dark roast for me...

The original Ruiz Coffee plantation, now organic, uses natural methods to control insect infestation. Banana trees are used to shade the coffee plants, while the fruit from Avocado, Mango, Orange, and Lime trees attract the insects, who are in turn eaten by birds. Nothing about the coffee bean is wasted. The beans rejected earlier for size and cosmetic reasons are ground up for instant coffee. Eighty percent of the coffee beans' skins are used as a compost to replenish the soil, while the remaining 20% is dried and sold as tea.Read more