Like Napa Valley is to wine, Boquete is to coffee.  Until recently it has been a town with a single passion, growing gourmet coffee.  The passion now, perhaps unfortunately, is real estate.  At our farms we're attempting to preserve some of the heritage of producing fine coffee.

Volcan Baru dominates the Boquete landscape.  It last showed any activity 500 years ago, but has left behind wonderful volcanic soil.  The soil, altitude, and rainfall combine to make an area for excellent coffee growing. 

Coffee blooms twice a year within a few months, so you have two crops growing simultaneously, which leads to a long harvest season.  Coffee flowers smell like orange blossoms, so during the bloom the farm is wonderfully fragrant.

Alfonso, our Ngobe Bugle Indian farm worker, picking coffee.  Coffee cherries ripen over a 5-month period and must be carefully harvested by hand.

Rebecca decided to try picking coffee.  Alfonso's son, Evangelito, gives advice.

"OK, so I'm a beginner!"

After 1.5 hours, Rebecca picked 1/8 of a "lata" which would earn her 15 cents.  Experienced Ngobe Bugle Indians pick about a lata an hour for which they make $1.25.  Each tree produces about a lata of cherries which ends up as 4-5 pounds of green coffee beans.

Coffee cherries when picked begin to ferment in 24 hours, so each days harvest must be taken to the "beneficio" or processing plant daily.

Cherries are measured out into a "Lata", which is the official measure for coffee cherries. Each cherry contains two or three seeds which are the coffee beans. 

The peg board is the traditional, time-honored way of counting the number of lattas being delivered.

Cherries are fermented in large vats until the moment when the cherry hull is just starting to soften and deteriorate.  Too long a fermentation can destroy the bean.

The fermented cherries flow into this machine which grinds off the hull, leaving only the beans.

Close up of machine to remove hulls from coffee cherries.

Wood-fired dryers dry the coffee beans.  Wood comes from trimming all the shade trees on the farm.  Too much shade is not good, so trees need frequent trimming.

Traditional drying in the sun, sometimes difficult in Boquete because of all the rain.

The sorting machine shakes the beans to separate them by size and quality grade.

We thought we'd try drying some coffee the traditional way in our driveway.  Spot first thought it looked like puppy chow, then thought it was just for her to play in!

Now the bean get to rest for several months.  Then are put through one more process to pound off the dried "parchment" covering the bean.

Traditionally the parchment covering was removed by pounding the beans by hand.  Now a machine does the job.

Traditionally after pounding the coffee beans were tossed into the air to let the wind blow away the chaff.

Green beans ready for weighing and shipping.

Green beans are roasted to perfection.  There is very little money in growing coffee.  The money comes in after roasting, when the coffee is sold for $3 a cup!

Perfect coffee - shade grown, high altitude, environmentally friendly.

Our farm worker and the house we built for him on our farm.  We took a little flak from some neighbors who thought this was "too good for an Indian."

Our kids, visiting from the States.  Well, it is a family business.

Any way you like it: ready for sipping.  Ah, perfection!

Jaguar Java, the wild and wonderful flavor of Panama!