Wilford is the first person we ever heard utter the phrase ”super specialty coffee.” Wilford, his father Thatcher, and his son Wilford Jr. are as responsible as anyone in moving Panama coffee from commercial production to making specialty coffee a global phenomenon. Their coffees sell for thousands of dollars on the international auctions because their non-stop innovation at every step of the process, from soil inputs, to climate controlled cold fermentation labs, to their sophisticated cafe in Panama City, unlocks the full potential of the cup experience.

Elida Estate is surrounded by a private virgin-forest reserve and the Volcan Baru National Park, home to exotic native species like the Quetzal bird and even jaguars. The Nögbe indigenous peoples form the main labor force on the farm. Elida Estate supports its teams with many amenities including housing, meals, educational facilities, and career pathways. Regularly investing in conservation is critical to future success, so the Lamastus’ plant and maintain native trees on their farms to provide sanctuary, shade, and nourishment for the avian inhabitants and exotic mammals.

Lamastus Family Estates were the Overall Winner of the 2024 Best of Panama

Siblings Daniel and Rachel and their father Price Peterson put Panama on the map and fundamentally changed specialty coffee when they were the first ones to enter a geisha into the 2004 Best of Panama competition. The Petersons stay at the top of the yearly Best of Panama competitions by invest continually investing in the infrastructure and processing equipment of Hacienda Esmeralda. In their cupping lab perched at the top of their processing facilities overlooking rolling pastures and coffee fields we had the opportunity to taste the results of their decades of dedication and select this coffee.

Perched at an altitude of 1650 meters, the Mario Arriba lot of Hacienda La Esmeralda is a unique testament to the farm’s commitment to quality and innovation. The coffee trees in this lot are mature, with an average age of 20 years. These older trees, deeply rooted in the rich volcanic soil, have had more time to absorb the nutrients, build out their branch transport systems, and develop complex flavors in the coffee cherries they produce. The beans produced here carry the legacy of two decades of evolution and refinement in coffee farming.

El Burro Estate, a distinguished coffee farm of Lamastus Family Estates known for its high-quality geisha and catuai, is a neighbor to our farm Finca La Cabra above Potrerillos Arriba. The estate contains 30 hectares dedicated to coffee cultivation and 35 hectares maintained as forest reserve. The coffee, grown at 1,575-1,800m in the rich, sandy-loam soil of the Volcano Baru and the microclimates of the surrounding national park, produces truly exceptional lots.

The farm applies fertilizers by hand, avoids insecticides and herbicides, and only uses fungicides under dire circumstances. 

Coffee is harvested from January to April, processed by washed, natural, and honey methods. The farm workers are largely indigenous Nögbe, who receive housing, food, and education on the farm.

El Burro Estate’s location within a national park and its prohibition on hunting underscores its role in preserving the natural ecosystem. The unique constellation of high elevation, young volcanic soils, cool temperatures, and bajareque cloud cover lengthens the maturation of the coffee cherries, producing a fine cup profile reflecting  its exceptional growing conditions.

Finca La Cabra is our own regenerative, super specialty coffee farm on the southern slope of the Volcan Baru a kilometer below the densely forested and richly biodiverse Parque Nacional Volcan Baru in Panama. The Lamastus Estates' El Burro and Willem's Best of Panama-winning Finca La Mula are our next door neighbors. We planted 20,000 geisha trees and 2,500 each of two other experimental varieties on 11 hectares of cleared, abandoned land in 2016 with Willem Boot, Catherine Cadloni, and Kelly Hartmann.

Regenerative to us means restoring and nourishing the soil and the people who live and work there. We built permanent housing for the crew and installed an extensive fertigation system to feed the trees with fertilizer we create from the compost concentrate we make from biomass from the farm. We also built a processing warehouse, raised parabolic, African-style drying beds, a nursery, and a rain capture system to direct water back into our irrigation system. The farm is home to hundreds of bird species including the glorious quetzal, jaguar, tapir, scorpions, and howler monkeys who wake you up at about 5 am every morning. 

Out of 82 individual lots this year, Lot 43, a natural processed geisha, was our absolute favorite. We are proud that it won a Bronze Medal in this year’s 2024 Golden Bean Competition in Houston.

Since the 2004 Best of Panama competition, Hacienda Esmeralda has remained focused on the future of their coffees. By investing in the infrastructure to support the latest trends in coffee processing, as well as planting their coffees at higher elevations the Petersons have remained at the pinnacle of coffee production. In their cupping lab perched at the top of their processing facilities overlooking rolling pastures and coffee fields we had the opportunity to taste the results of their decades of dedication. 

The Bosque 2 lot from Hacienda La Esmeralda is another remarkable facet of this innovative coffee farm. Situated at 1700 meters, the cooler evening air allows the trees to rest from the photosynthetic process and develop the coffee’s distinctive notes. The coffee trees in this lot are slightly younger than the rest of the farm, averaging 13 years. Despite their relative youth, these trees are robust and full of vitality, contributing to the distinct character of the coffee they produce.

If you want to know what a coffee flower smells and tastes like, then drink this coffee.  

The jungles around Gesha Village are the home to the most extraordinary bank of genetic data and diversity for coffee in the entire world. The coffees from here, especially the Gesha 1931 Lot which comes from the original gesha trees, are the zenith of all of coffee. 

 In 2015, we hopped on a plane and took off for the birthplace in the Gori Gesha forest of this beloved gesha coffee that has changed specialty coffee and human lives forever. We got a Land Rover out of Addis Ababa and headed southwest for several days, eventually leaving paved roads far behind as we journeyed to Gesha Village Coffee Estate. 

Gesha Village Estate is magical. Spanning 471 acres, the estate is both a conservation sanctuary and a lab for the gesha and its sister varieties growing there  Gesha Village is comprised of tall, mature, old growth forests covering 471 hectares providing natural shade and a specific microclimate of mist and cool temperatures in which these coffees flourish.