Post - Everyday Travel Guides

by Rebecca Hollman
updated April 9, 2019

Finca dos Jefes Coffee Farm - Boquete, Panama

Boquete is one of the most beautiful areas of Panama, known for its lush jungles, waterfalls, coffee farms and hiking trails. Finca Dos Jefes is a coffee farm in the Boquete area that grows high quality coffee and works hard to provide great working conditions and pay for its employees and also to reduce the environmental impact of their farm. Read more about how Finca Dos Jefes grows their unique coffee beans below.

Table of Contents

Processing:

There are two different ways to process coffee beans: drying and washing. Washing is the most common type consisting of hosing the beans down with water to remove all the excess layers of the coffee fruit. This uses an immense amount of water and is generally not environmentally friendly because of the waste water runoff. Drying on the other hand, involves drying the entire fruit for a couple of months and then removing the dried layers by hand or by machine. This way is labor intensive because the coffee must be covered everytime there is even a chance of rain. Only about 40% of coffee producers dry their beans. Most coffee brands actually only own the washing facility and buy the coffee beans that were grown on small farms.

Drying:

The coffee fruit, called the cherry, is dark red when ready and very high in sugar content. Cherries are dried in “African beds” in direct sunlight. Processing via drying keeps the bean inside the cherry for longer so there are more flavors absorbed by the bean. This also makes the bean sweeter because of the sugars inside the cherry. Once the cherries are dried, called raisins, they are kept in storage for anywhere between 3 months to 1 year to get more flavors. After it is taken out of storage, the cherries have to be broken open. This is done in a machine that has rollers that break open all the cherry skins. All the beans are extracted and given back to Finca Dos Jefes. The unroasted beans that are extracted from the dried cherries are called “green beans.” The dried cherry shells are turned into cascara tea. Only 20% of farms that dry cherries don’t use chemicals and therefore only those are able to make cascara tea. Cascara tea used to be the poor farmers drink, as it still contains caffeine and they could make it from the waste product - so they wouldn’t have to drink coffee they were going to sell. Now, cascara tea is a very expensive and trendy drink you can buy in specialty coffee shops.

Fair Trade vs Direct Trade:

Most people have heard about fair trade, but few people know about direct trade. Direct trade actually brings money from point of consumption to point of production. Coffee roasteries that engage in direct trade buy the beans from farms in countries that they have usually visited and that meet direct trade standards, which include certain picker salaries/housing, etc. This ensures that the money is actually going to the pickers, and not all to just the farm owner who then pays his pickers slave wages. Fair trade just makes sure that farmers make enough to cover cost of production, i.e. it only provides enough certainty that farmers will break even. A bag of coffee can only contain 40% fair trade beans in a bag and can still have a fair trade label. If you want to actually directly benefit coffee pickers and small time farmers, then google “direct trade roasteries near me” and purchase coffee from these stores.

Arabica vs Robusta:

There are 6,000 varieties of coffee plants but they all come from 2 different species - Arabica and Robusta. Arabica needs altitude to grow, needs lots of water, and needs high nutrient soil. This is why you see many coffee farms around volcanoes - because of the nutrient rich soil. Arabica is sensitive and has to be hand-picked. Because of all these factors, it is harder to grow but is generally considered the better between the two species. Robusta can be machine-picked and can be grown in heat and at sea level making it easier to grow, but less quality. This is usually the type of coffee you find in instant coffee and in cheaper bags. Caffeine is produced as a defense mechanism against insects and because Robusta is grown in hotter areas with more insects, it actually has 3 times more caffeine than Arabica. Arabica plants don’t produce cherries until year 3 and can produce for 80 years but the best quality is only until year 30.

Growing:

The best quality cherries are the ones on the bottom of the plants (closer to the nutrients of the soil) so trees are pruned to make every cherry have more nutrients. At farms like Finca Dos Jefes, it is more important to have quality over quantity. It takes 9 months from the flower of the plant blooming to form a ripe cherry. After it is initially picked, the coffee is “floated.” This means that all the cherries are put in water and the ones that float are burned and discarded. If they float that means a Broka insect has drilled a hole in the cherry and laid larvae inside. Coffee plants need shade to grow and the more stable the climate and shade, the more cherries are produced. Plant nitrogen fixing trees give coffee plants both shade and nitrogen. This is why it is common to see coffee plants grown underneath larger trees.

Roasting:

Green beans are separated by size before roasting because different sizes will get roasted at different rates (small beans roast faster, etc.). Roasting has to do with chemical reactions inside the bean. Lighter roasts have more flavor profile because less of the aromas and flavors have been burned out. Dark roast is more common just because most brands can’t pull off a light roast - since you will be able to taste more, the more you will notice the inconsistencies in flavor. Dark roasts have less caffeine but not significantly. Each roast level has a range of temperatures and French Roast/Italian Roast have nothing to do with flavor and instead are certain temperatures that the beans are roasted at. Drum roasting is a type of roasting like a concrete truck, where the rotating is constant to get a consistent roast across all beans. The amino acid breakdown by heat is what makes aromatic oils (which gives the flavor profile). This is called the “browning process.” Carmelization is when the sugar starts coming out of the beans. The beans are then also cooking in the sugar. This is also a browning process and what makes roasting coffee beans smell like someone is baking cookies. Medium roasts will be the sweetest since it goes past the carmelization process, but not long enough that it burns the sugars away.

Brewing:

There are different factors that are used to brew coffee - the most common two being pressure or time. A French Press or normal coffee machine uses time while an espresso machine uses pressure. A fine grind is over-extracted in a French Press, while a course grind is under-extracted in espresso. Espresso is only a type of brewing method and has nothing to do with the beans or roasting. There is something called an “espresso roast” but this is a type of dark roast. To brew coffee, you want 1 part coffee and 17 parts water. Add a little bit of water to the French Press first to let the coffee “bloom,” or let off excess carbon dioxide. Then add the rest of the water. Adding boiling water directly will make coffee bitter, add water after it has cooled from boiling for 2-3 minutes.