November 2012’s pick

Panama Don Pepe Cattura

A glorious medium roast made using the honey processing method. Sweet and fruity, and with a pedigree to be proud of.

Panama’s coffees trace their complex flavours back to something no other country can claim: the high-altitude microclimate of Panama’s Central Mountain Range. The East-West winds that roll across this growing region create tiny microclimates that make this coffee unlike anything else in the world.

Our coffee experts’ personal verdicts

Jim, 35 years in the coffee trade
“Fruity and luscious perfectly describe this coffee so I would recommend that you drink it black. If you want your milk fix, try a glass of Seco with your coffee and add a dash of milk as the Panamanians do. This fermented sugar cane is their national drink and the milk slows down alcohol absorption – something you might need as most Seco is a minimum 80% proof!”

Geoff, 35 years in the coffee trade
“Panama is traditionally known for its wealth of colourful and luscious fruit. Don Pepe Cattura is so fruity and full of fresh, effervescent flavours, it perfectly complements the cuisine and just reminds me of Spring.”

An Unexpected Home for Gourmet Coffee

‘Panama’ isn’t a name we’re used to seeing on coffee sacks, and for good reason: this nation of 3.5 million people doesn’t do mass-market coffee production. If Panama is known for any kind of coffee at all, it’s small-batch gourmet coffee, like this Caturra from the Don Pepe Estate.

The Don Pepe Estate is located in the humid tropical forests on the slopes of Baru Volcano, the country’s tallest mountain. The coffee you’re drinking today traces its origins back to 1899, when pioneer Don Enrique Vásquez founded a town and a plantation. Five generations later, the Don Pepe Estate is one of Panama’s most respected growers of gourmet coffee.

Meet The Ngöbe-buglé

The coffee farms around the Baru Volcano couldn’t survive without the Ngöbe-Buglé. These native Panamanians migrate to farms like Don Pepe Estate to harvest the cherries by hand. They use traditional techniques to find the very ripest cherries – the essential first step of the honey process.

The Honey Process

With the honey process, cherries are picked, weighed and then pulped in manual or electrical pulpers. They are then spread on raised drying beds and dried for 10-12 days with the sticky remains of the fruit still fully attached to the beans.

What sets this method apart is the lack of water used. Not a single drop is wasted on pulping, washing or fermenting (compare this to 2,000 litres of water to wet process a sack of green beans). This lowers processing costs, as there’s no need to pipe in water or truck the cherries to a wet mill. Pulpers and drying beds are also more affordable than mills and mechanical dryers. All of this makes the honey process enormously environmentally friendly.

The drying of the parchment with all the mucilage still attached has a direct impact on the sweetness of the cup. Honey coffees have a unique cup profile, characterised by a distinct sweetness, enhanced fruit notes and sweet acidity on the taste and aftertaste.

Tasting notes

You'll also find that with a honey processed coffee like this one, sweetness is the order of the day. Start your tasting experience by smelling: the dry aroma is toasted hazelnut and maple syrup and the wet aroma kicks in with cocoa and floral notes.

Don Pepe Cattura is a lively coffee with a fruity acidity. When you taste it, see if you can detect fruity flavours like plum and coconut. There’s also a sweet, caramel background flavour – our tasters found this lasted all the way to the finish.