Flavor and taste of Panamanian boutique coffee A brief introduction to the treatment of Cupid Fine Coffee beans

Under such stimulating conditions, it will bring many challenges

As you can see, all coffee cultivation depends on the unique growing environment of western Panama. The weather is the most crucial part of the story, and thankfully, these special circumstances create a special flavor that makes all the hard work worthwhile. In addition to the official rainy season, Finca Nuguo also experienced an unusual rainfall (La Mula also had one), which Panamanians call "bajareque." The rain came so rapidly from the Atlantic that I even witnessed a wave-like cloud covering a corner of the hillside. Standing on the top of a mountain, one second covered in intense sunlight, you can see clouds sliding slowly between two slopes, like a blanket. Before you know it, the next second you're in bajareque. The cold rain is very fine, like silver needles, and the temperature drops sharply, almost stinging your skin. Bajareque causes a lot of trouble for local farmers, but José Gallardo of Finca Nuguo Estate tells us: "In a tropical rain forest, trees love the rainy season. The trees in the dry zone are very similar, with few leaves and dry ground. But in Nuguo, if you go into the jungle, you'll find leaves everywhere. Everything is soft.

1. exposure

At Finca Nuguo, washed coffee usually takes weeks to dry, while sun coffee takes months to process. José Gallardo, in order to reduce the moisture content of his coffee to 14%, had to personally drive his coffee beans to friends in low-altitude cities and complete the final step with a dehydrator. These additional steps increase the richness and complexity of coffee flavor, but time and labor costs directly lead to a sharp increase in the price of the final product.

2. wind

Panama's wind can be unusually fierce,"for Nuguo no matter where the wind blows from, it is a very bad thing." Sometimes we have to watch trees die, but we don't plant in places where there's a lot of wind." Gallardo's management style is to keep the rainforest in its most pristine state, so when pruning and managing trees, it is usually considered how to prevent wind. As a result, their main coffee growing and production areas are concentrated in areas with natural windbreak protection. I hope I can plant more trees in the future. Protecting forests is very important to us." Gallardo said.

3. human

Road and driving conditions are another issue. Because of frequent rainfall, mountain roads are often blocked. Kelly Hartmann, the estate manager, was trapped in the mountains by sudden mudslides. "It would take them hours to get out of the mountains," Boot said. Gallardo told us that they would provide plastic raincoats for the workers, that dealing with the weather was always a concern, and that roads, workers, everything was in the category.

At Finca Sofia estate, temperatures are sometimes extremely low, so the structure of the house is very important. Boots tells us,"A good home environment that resists wind, rain and cold will help you sleep better." This has a huge impact on how you look the next day Boot comments on the phenomenon: "It's a combination of several factors: a unique forest climate, lots of rain, cloud-filled trees. Because of this unique climate, we get a lot of planting material, which creates a very complex organic matter in the soil. Constant moisture helps these materials degrade, and hyperactive microbiome bacteria create a special metabolism that helps the trees get nutrients. Higher altitudes and cooler weather conditions mean coffee can have more complex oils. We can't measure this precisely, but we can taste it, and I've consulted botanists, and the distinctive color of coffee, such as the distinctive reddish hue observed at Finca Nuguo, is also related to these complex oils."