Panama Premium Boquete – Damarli Estate – Noble Pacamara – Imperial Natural Processed

Description

Damarli Estate Noble coffees are the top lots, very high scoring coffees and the best the farm has to offer. Higher rated coffees are often exotic and high acidity, including this one. A very fruit forward coffee with moderate acidity. Not for everyone, those who love a fruit forward complex cup will love this cup. Imperial; this is a fermentation treatment done to process the beans. They put the full coffee cherry in tanks with special yeasts to get a perfect level of fermentation, then it hits the drying trays. Flipping it often while making sure it does not dry too quick or too slow. A lot of care and love went into these beans.

Damarli Estate is a specialty coffee farm located in Boquete, Panama. The estate dates back to 1995 when David Pech, a photographer in the United States and his wife Lia Pech (Ruiz) bought the farm from a bank foreclosure. Lia’s family, the Ruiz family, had been heavily involved in the coffee industry in Boquete for four generations; thus David and Lia were encouraged to get involved with the family industry as well.

Tasting Notes: A lovely lighter roast coffee assuming you like fruity and floral cups. This is not your average Pacamara bean, often they are pretty dark toned. Lighter roasts will show strong lemony acidity and lots of floral characteristics, strong grape like fruity factor with just a hint of a rustic semi-earthy malty undertone, very sweet edged. Although similar to the other Pacamara, the floral and citric tones are much stronger with the Imperial. Make sure you like fruity naturals and acidity if you are going for the lighter roasts.

Medium roasts were not as front loaded with the fruity floral but still very noticeable, builds some good body as you push the roast a bit darker. Cups turns much more chocolaty with fruity highlights as you get close to 2nd crack, it will still show some floral lemony character as well providing a lot of sweet crisp tones. Dark roasts are not recommended, they will turn a bit bitter and edgy hiding most of the unique tastes.

Roasting Notes: Very large beaned coffee, shouldn’t cause any issues with roasting. High chaff being a trick honey processed coffee. Roasts pretty even but looks a shade or two darker than it really is. Watch for the expansion to mark first crack and make sure you at least get a little development past that. Any hint of wet looking oil or too much smoke, make sure to hit cool. Better to error a little lighter than darker on this one.

Damarli, as a name came from a combination of the original investors: David and Lia and David’s father and mother (Manfred and Ruth Pech) – DA- for David, MA- for Manfred, R – for Ruth and LI – for Lia.

The estate was planted in 1996 and began to produce in 2001. For over one decade Damarli Estate sold the raw coffee cherries to Casa Ruiz, which was Lia’s family’s coffee business. In 2014, David and Lia’s son Keith moved from the United States to Panama in order to begin a new project at Damarli Estate. This was the beginning of a new chapter for the beans.

Keith began to identify all the unique coffee varieties that were grown at Damarli Estate and market them internationally. Keith and David began to process their own coffee at the estate in a way that would create sweet and unique cup profiles that had little to no water waste. They built a house on the estate to accept visitors, a new mill and drying beds to process all the coffees and a coffee tasting lab to accept international buyers. Damarli Estate is a beautiful farm filled with tropical birds, tall canopy forests and enchanting sunrises.