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 but those who love a fruit forward complex cup will love this cup. Imperial Honey, 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 they pull off the skin of the fruit before 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.
This is season three working with Damarli Estate and boy is it paying off. Keith Pech, owner of Damarli Estate has some family in the U.P. (Michigan) and passes by our warehouse from time to time visiting his family. Keith is really on the cutting edge of Panamanian coffee, this was a rough year for Damarli, crazy shortages but we were still able to get our hands on 40 pounds of his best coffee!
Geisha coffee is a unique single strain that has been dominating the coffee competitions and top cups as of late. One just took the place of the worlds most expensive coffee from the recent Best of Panama competition going for over $2300/lb! Common for top grades out of Panama (not that competition winner) to sell in the $40-$80/lb range. So all in all, this lot is expensive but still a great bang for the buck for the class of bean.
Tasting Notes: A tremendous light roast bean with bright, robust, fruit-forward tones balanced with spice and stellar aromatics. It is always a bit harder to pick out those traditional Geisha tones with the natural processing but not in this cup. If you stick lighter, you’ll get them in this cup’s aromatics, some wondrous, almost jasmine-like Ethiopian aromatics. Clean as a whistle with very noticeable lemony/floral acidity and lovely red fruit tones. Sweet, delicate, and well-defined at the lighter roasts. A slight warning: a fruit-forward cup with higher acidity, lighter roasted, is not for everyone.
Roasting Notes: An easier coffee to roast compared to some of these fancy pants offerings. The stronger fruit tones make it tasty anywhere from light to medium. We still thought the lighter roasts shined a bit better than medium but both were plenty tasty. High chaff and slightly uneven roasting, definitely judge the roast by the darker beans. Too dark on this cup and one will lose a ton of distinctiveness.
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.
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.
John Dickenson (verified owner) –
I have long been a fan of Ethiopian naturals. This one is right up there with some of the best of those. I generally like light to medium + roasts depending on the bean.y first try at this one was ultra light just into the first crack. This was a little rough with a bit of a bite. This last batch I pushed a toward the end of the first crack. What a difference! Still fruit forward and complex but velvety mouth feel like the best Ethiopians with a lovely floral acidity. As the cup cools the tea notes and complexity become more apparent. With the price and flavor profile this one is not for everyone, but very special for some of us.
P
travis.penn –
This is obviously a super premium coffee. Roasted light, made espresso. This one seemed to have more flavor than other Geshas, which can be too tea like and bland for me at times. For this one, the flavors were more present but still soft with only a little bitter. Fruity and citrusy, reminiscent of Ethiopia, as the description mentions. As with other Geshas, it seems like a coffee to serve people with delicate palettes. I would enjoy drinking this at length, but when looking at the price, I can’t….and if I were in the mood to splurge, I’d still prefer Kona.