I've been buying coffee from Carmen Estate since 2010. It started with their caturra, and somewhere in there Carlos Aguilera and I became proper friends. Carlos built this farm and transformed it into one of Panama’s top farms. He named it after his mother, Carmen.
Here's the thing about where it grows. Paso Ancho sits in the Volcan region, and when Baru last erupted, this is the spot where it dumped the most material. All of it, right here. The soil is about as fertile as it gets in Panama, and the coffee is forever grateful. Add the elevation, add the native forest around it, and you've got the combination every coffee producer dreams of.
Now, the Geisha. Green tip, planted back in 2010, way up at 1900m. And it almost didn't work. It's cold up there and it's windy, and for a few years those trees just sat there having a hard time. Carlos and the team poured love into them until finally, in 2013, there was just enough cherry on the trees to cup the thing properly.
I was in Panama for that first cupping. First production the farm ever made, and it was already obvious. That coffee had something.
Thirteen years later, here we are.
Back to this lot. Jean Paul Langenstein watches the processing now and he does not miss. Cherries get picked, then oxidized whole in stainless steel tanks for 36 hours. Out onto raised beds for two full weeks. Then into the dark room to finish, slow, the rest of the way.
What comes out is loaded with tropical fruit everywhere, but the cool part is that it never once stops tasting like Geisha. This is the hard part - most producers can make a coffee taste tropical, but to do that and retain its terroir; that’s hard and it’s what separates the great from the good.
The coffee is amazing, year after year. Not bad for a handful of trees that nearly didn't make it.
