Finca Lerida

Boquete is the coffee growing area of Panama. Panamanian coffee has been having a huge surge in popularity over the last several years, particularly with the “Geisha” coffee, which has won the world coffee championship for the last several years.

Naturally, touring a coffee finca, our plantation, needed to be on our itinerary. Finca Lerida, one of the top fincas, was our choice.

It is somewhat difficult to separate the hype from the reality on coffee these days. The tour went into excruciating detail on micro-climate, DNA, and soil. Bitterness vs. acidity. On and on. We saw washed, dried, in the skin, and every kind of processing.

The coffee beans themselves are quite sweet when you first bite into ripe beans. After a while, it’s like chewing on edamame. The seed inside becomes the bean, although even the husk of that needs to come off eventually.

After seeing how it’s processed, including drying it on the ground, (and walking over it just a wee bit), we moved on to the tasting. Tasters are called “cuppers” and always taste with light roast. That way it’s easier to taste the flavors in the coffee.

By the way, turns out dark roasts have less caffeine than light roasts, turning conventional wisdom on its heat.

Tasting consisted if making three different kinds coffees/processes. There was rolling it around in front the nose, slurping, sucking, etc. There was even a taste wheel, on the wall, just in case we couldn’t come up with the words.

After the tour, we went up to a wonderful meal in the restaurant. Looking up to the mountains, we could see where the Caribbean air meets the Pacific air, causing clouds of mist.