Panama, Coffee and Boquete

We flew into Panama City Friday night and on to David in Panama's western highlands yesterday.  David is relatively low and hot, but the drive to Boquete, where we were last night and will be tonight  is interesting and beautiful.  There are 6 of us in our group.

Coffee berries drying in the sun - Boquete

Boquete is a town of about 25,000 people, set in a lovely mountain valley surrounded by volcanoes.  It is the heart of Panama's coffee production and a haven for American, Canadian, and European retirees seeking a quiet lifestyle in a relatively inexpensive place.  However, developers are rapidly buying coffee plantations and turning them into gated communities for these retirees, changing the culture and landscape of this rural area.

Boquete's birds are colorful

The largest part of the population in the area is Indian, mostly living in villages in the surrounding mountains.  They provide most of the labor force.  The women wear beautifully colored dresses while the men are Western-dressed.  The Flower and Coffee Festival is underway in Boquete right now, so there is exuberant color everywhere.



We spent yesterday afternoon on a tour of one of Cafe Ruiz's 11 coffee plantations.  There are 16 steps in the production of coffee, with many variations on how it is produced and processed.  First, of course, is the picking, which is done by hand so that only the ripe berries are picked.  They are a deep red fruit, with the beans securely inside the fruit.  In a variety of ways, these berries are sorted many times, washed, dried, fermented, squeezed and packaged, mostly before being roasted, and then exported to North American and European markets.

Indian mom and daughter

The coffee trees produce berries after 5 years.  In another 5 years, they are pruned severely to keep them low and available for picking.  After pruning, it is another 2 years before they will produce coffee again.  Pickers move through the trees every 2 weeks to pick the ripe fruit.  Because coffee grows in different conditions, the plantations have a mix of trees so that some coffee trees are shaded, producing one type of coffee, and others are in the sun.  When berries drop to the ground and eventually dry out, they'll produce seedlings from the dried seeds.  These must be either removed or cultivated so that the trees don't get too crowded.

We tasted coffee, which I've never thought about much before, and learned about the rich mix of flavors that different processing mechanisms deliver.




We are staying at the Panamonte Inn, with its spacious rooms and beautiful gardens full of brightly colored birds.  Fortunately, we're far enough out of the center of town to have some peace amidst the rather raucous sounds of the Festival.

Today, the clouds came in late, filling the valley with mist.  At this time of year, the clouds produce mist rather than rain, so it is cool and soft and quite pleasant.  Boquete is about 3000 feet, so quite cool and a welcome contrast to the Pacific and Caribbean Coasts.

Festival food

Coffee fruit ready for picking