Panama Finca Lérida #0609

It was the project of a Norwegian engineer who came to build the Panama Canal and stayed for the mountains. He planted coffee high on the slopes of Volcán Barú in Boquete in the 1920s, and nearly a century later the estate is still working those same cloud forested hills, now among the oldest and most respected names in the country.

This lot is fully washed with a controlled 12 hours of fermentation. Cherries are selectively harvested and sorted by flotation to remove underripe and defective fruit, depulped, then fermented for 12 hours before being washed clean and dried slowly on raised beds over 25 days. The short, measured fermentation and long, gradual drying are both deliberate, together they develop sweetness while preserving the clarity and delicate aromatics that define washed gesha.