*This coffee is a Pre sale for December roasting. This coffee will be roasted Thursday December 12th. Orders with this coffee in the cart will not be processed until December 12th.*

Roast: Light 

Country: Panama

Region: Alto Quiel, Boquete

Producer: Elida Estate

Variety: Geisha Green Tip

Processing: Natural DRD (Dark Room Dried)

Altitude: 1920-1960 masl

Tasting Notes

Despite being a natural, this coffee shows the classic Washed Geisha flavors of Bergamot, jasmine, chamomile, and papaya. Sweet and delicate with an incomparable acidity.

In the 2024 Best of Panama cupping competition another harvest date of the Vuelta DRD took 1st place in the Geisha Naturals category with a score of 95.13 and sold for a all time record price of $10,013/kg ($4542/lb) We were among the group that purchased this auction lot, securing 500g for a handful of our customers. We asked Wilford Lamastus to prepare for us another 10kg lot of coffee the most similar to the auction winning coffee to offer to our customers for the holidays.

Elida Estate

The Lamastus Family has being producing coffee in Elida Estate for four generations since 1918. Elida Estate coffees are produced under a unique world-ecological condition: it is shade-grown, bird-friendly, the farm is located at a very high elevation, in a microclimate with very low temperatures, the coffee trees are surrounded by the Volcan Baru National Park -a virgin native cloudy rain forest-.

At the turn of the 20th century, Kentucky born Robert Lamastus started an Arabica coffee plantation in a farm located at around 5,600 ft (1 700 m) above sea level in the skirts of the Baru Volcano in Boquete, Panama. At the time he processed and exported what is still today considered as one of the highest quality coffees in the world. Nowadays and three generations later the tradition continues, the Lamastus family, still produces, processes, exports, and now roast its own rare estate coffees.

Elida Estate is the highest coffee farm in Panama located between 5,500 and 8,200 ft (1.700 and 2.500m) above sea level.

The VUELTA lot is the highest elevation fully productive lot at Elida Estate. It is entirely located within the Baru Volcano National Park (BVNP), the most biodiverse coffee area of Boquete, providing a unique and rare terroir ideal for growing Geisha.

More than half of this farm is located within the Volcan Baru National Park a protected ecological reserve and sanctuary for exotic plants, birds and mammals (like the tropical tiger). Hunting has been prohibited in this farm for decades. The Baru volcano is one of the highest volcanoes in Central America, with 14,000ha and 7 different climate zones depending on the elevation. Coffee in this farm is grown up to 1960m.

This coffee is produced under a unique world-condition for several reasons: first the farm is located at a very high elevation, it is grown in rich young volcanic soils, the temperatures are low, there is lots of fog and mist during the dry season, the coffee trees are surrounded by virgin-native cloudy rain forest, the nights get cold here thereby taking a tree from 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 years to start producing  (2 or 3 years longer to produce than average), these low temperatures also extend the ripening time 1 month longer (thereby the development of the bean). All these unique growing conditions show in a distinguished cup.

The Vuelta DRD Natural  coffee undergoes anaerobic fermentation for 3 days in sealed plastic bags and is then dried in the new dark room (DRD) This room is climate controlled for humidity and temperature and is kept dark, preventing potential degradation on volatile aromatic compounds by UV.