On her last visit to Chile, my fellow IACP member, Elena Hernandez , brought me a selection of Panama’s finest organic coffee. Elena is a chef living in Panama City who runs the Academia de Artes Culinarias. Since she has the in on everything foodie in country, she had raved about this great little coffee producer up in the mountains of Boquete–Kotowa Coffee . Her gift was spot on. Since living in Costa Rica in my teens, I became a serious lover of coffee and like wine, had gotten into “tasting” different varieties and regions.
Generally speaking, my taste in coffee tends to be strong (forget this drip-machine stuff in the US, sorry!). I love espresso straight up from our Francis Francis machine or fresh ground from the French press. There’s something about that foam…Overall though, the coffee should be assertive yet smoothe with a good acidity and no bitter aftertaste.
In this vein, knowing the Panamanian stash was limited, I took a while to getting around to opening it since I knew that once it was opened it would be gone quickly.
The morning we decided to give this a whirl, I decided it needed a noble breakfast so I made my perennial favorite–wholewheat blueberry pancakes with recently arrived Maple Syrup from Canada. We ground the coffee ourselves, which I will say if you are a coffee aficionado and do not have this gizmoo, it will change your life—and tastebuds—forever. We decided to use the French press for this first experiment to really feel the coffee in our mouths since it was the Traditional roast. The verdict? Amazing. This is not an “obvious” coffee—the kind that sort of punches you at the beginning. It is subtle, delicious, and what really blew me away was the balance. It had all the nuances of a fine wine. There were even some sweet chocolate notes on the end. Pure lovin’ in a cup.
To give you some background on the beans, this coffee is grown at 4,500 feet in the mountains of Boquete, a little village on the Eastern slopes of the Barú Volcano surrounded by cloud forests and flower gardens. In particular, the area is renowned for its coffee, sweet oranges, AND its sustainable farming practices. In the case of Kotowa, what makes their coffee so good is the “terroir”. Rich, deep soil and a cool climate with altitude that gives their coffee good body, that chocolate aroma, and sweet acidity. However, what is interesting about their particular history is that it was founded by a Canadian with serious wanderlust, Alexander MacIntyre. He traveled to Boquete in 1918 after a reading an article on Panama and never left (hmm, that story rounds familiar…). Now, three generations later, his family is still making great coffee.
Well, thanks to Kotowa (and Elena) for bringing these tasty beans into my palate awareness. Now the question is—how do I get more?
