Panama Premium Boquete – Mama Cata Estate – Typica Washed

Description

New 2020 crop!

Mama Cata is a very top notch award winning farm that very seldom makes it to the US. Located in some of the best growing territory in Panama, Jose’s highest elevation and most renowned farm (he owns Garrido Estate as well as some other smaller fields).  Some of the biggest names in Panama coffee are also located in this prime territory, Hacienda Esmeralda and Elida Estate are neighbors.  Since his coffee is always obtained by foreign markets, many in the US have not heard the name Mama Cata before.

Founded in 1911, one of the original premium Panama farms, currently owned by Jose David Garrido Perez (who also owns Garrido, and just happens to be decent friends with our Panamanian farmer buddy, Keith Pech).  Jose had 3 of his coffees place in the Best of Panama, including a chop of his Panama Mokka which went for $142/lb! This farm knows how to grow/process some of the world’s best coffee.

This is a super tasty and clean washed processed coffee, highly rated but not a competition winner, much more affordable than the Geisha or Mokka and a bit more classic in its tones.  Produced by one of the best Panama farms on the block!

Tasting Notes: A clean, sweet and smooth cup of coffee one can drink all day long! Lighter roasts will show some acidity, bringing some lemony and floral tones to the front end of the cup and balance with a little sweeter edged nutty/malty undertone. A little fuller bodied at the light-medium roast level which made it very easy to drink. As one pushes it into the medium roast range, the acidity drops nicely to just a crisp hint, the nutty tones turn into hints of caramel and accentuate the malty cup profile, becoming the predominate tone.  Dark roasts turn pretty strong but the nice sweeter malty cup profile mixes nicely with smoky and roasty notes.

Roasting Notes: An easy coffee to roast, beautiful large beans. Good from light to dark, pretty low chaff and pretty even roasting. Darkens up pretty quickly, will look a little darker than it is. We recommend trying it on the lighter side of a medium roast to get a nicely balanced cup.

Funny story, decently before the Best of Panama competition, we had Keith buy 150 pounds of the Panama Mokka (as well as his top cupping Geisha) from Jose for a Holiday Super Premium offering, crazy cool stuff but we thought pricey @ $40/lb. Jose entered the rest of his Mokka chops in to the BOP and won first place in traditional naturals, cupped out at 91 points and selling for $140/lb. Keep an eye out for when we launch that one ;-), although pricey, $100 less per pound is quite the deal!

Keith Pech has become a good friend over the last couple of seasons. He has some family in the U.P. (Michigan) and passes by our warehouse from time to time when visiting his family. Keith is really on the cutting edge of Panamanian coffee, he places in the the Best of Panama every year he enters.

He really hooked it up with some nice high-end Natural Processed Caturra and Typica from his farm, as well as playing our eyes and ears on the ground in Panama.  His mom is actually part of the Ruiz family who we sourced a ton of awesome Panama coffees from in years past.

Turns out Keith is buddies with all the other Panama operations we have dealt with in the past as well. Elida, HI-U, Esmeralda, Mama Cata, Nuguo, Ruiz. Quite the guy to have befriended, with being able to piggyback on his containers, we now have easy access to the best of the best.  Not only that, but with Keith playing nice and being very well-liked by these other farmers, we were able to snag top lots from the best farms in Panama, primo beans that normally never make it to the US.  Nothing else on the block like these offerings!