STiR coffee and tea magazine

30 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 6, 2019 (December / January 2020) 160 128 96 64 32 0 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019 Calendar year 1000s 60-Kilo Bags Panama Green Coffee Bean Exports by Year Worker harvests coffee for 90+ Coffee Coffee production in the Boquete Valley began early in the 20th century, although coffee was growing wild all over the Pacific coast of Panama by then, probably due to errant seeds from the first introduction of the plants centuries earlier. Arabica, accounts for 82% of production, most of it Caturra and Typica, with robusta at 18%. Chiriqui is followed by Cocle with 13.8% and Colón with 5.2%. Panama's coffee production – 12,236 metric tons in 2018, a drop from 14,341 tons in 2017, is infinitesimal compared to the larger coffee producing countries, accounting for a tiny .01% of world production. Between 2017 and 2018 the coffee harvest in Panama fell by 15%. Export volume has risen and dropped in the past 10 years making graphs literally look like roller coaster tracks. In coffee year 2013/14, the country exported only 45,000 60-kilo bags, rising dramatically in 2015, only to plum- met again, until the first quarter of 2019 registered a stunning 38% drop in the value of exported coffee with a 22.7% drop in export volume to 222,000 kg. This drop in exports is proud Panama's answer to the tanking of prices on the international markets. Local coffee growers prefer to market their coffee in-country, according to the ministry's Coffee Program of Agricultural De- velopment (MIDA). And they've been on it, slowly but surely. Sometime in the early 1990s Price Peterson, and Wilford Lamastus Jr. were among a dozen or so specialty growers to establish the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama (SCAP) to promote Panamanian coffee worldwide and domestically. As in other producing countries, domestic con- sumption remained low until very recently. It was Wilford Lamastus of Elida Estate who opened the first specialty café in Panama City, Bajareque Caffee House. This launched the specialty retail scene in the city's trendy San Francisco neighborhood, where café's like barista-owned and run Leto Coffee Brew Bar and the flagship of the Café Unido specialty chain proliferated. Also in Panama City: Paddle Café, Mentrititas Blancas, Dodo Ban, and Casa Sucre Coffeehouse in Casco Viejo, serve top- tier specialty coffee to hitherto coffee-frustrated tourists and an ever-increasing stream of apprecia- tive natives. The consumer market is now responding to a better educated and higher income generation of Panamanians who benefit from an economy based largely on service industries like banking and fi- nance. And, unlike other producing countries, two main indigenous groups, the Bugle and Ngobe people own most of the smaller coffee estates which has an important social impact and con- tributes disproportionately to the sustainable and environment-friendly practices that characterize Panama's coffee sector. The mid- and large-scale plantations are owned largely by European or North American immigrants or their descendants. But the most important take-away from an overview of Panamanian growers is the curious and innovative attitude, a constant striving for continuous improvement, which, according to one roaster, "keeps buyers attentive and enthu- siastic about what will come out of the country each year." It is also a direct relationship between the producers and the exporters which goes a long way to explaining the contrast in the situation of Panamanian growers and those in nearby coun- tries. Panama's producers are more sophisticated. They live in a higher income country, and they un- derstand the specialty market. Buyers know the producers, often by name, and work with them directly. They cup and buy coffees privately, often competing personally amongst themselves over coffee stocks. As op- posed to most producing regions, where farmers are encouraged to abdicate this relationship to well-meaning but disconnected government-led associations and wholesalers, losing the connec- tion to their coffees as it passes through a long chain of intermediaries. As one specialist remarked, "a dehumanized supply chain leads to inhuman prices. Panama shows us that when the buyer sees the producer as an equal and a friend, the value of the product naturally increases."

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