This Coffee Is a National Treasure in Panama

Cesar Caballero’s eyes crinkle at the corners of his black-framed glasses as he stands in the shade of the well-placed banana trees that protect his coffee plants from Panama’s relentless sun. He picks up a pair of binoculars and focuses on a tree in the distance, certain he’s spotted something: one of his winged coworkers.

“There are more than 200 species of birds at Finca Lérida,” he says, scanning the branches. Caballero explains that the birds eat insects such as the coffee berry borer beetle, the most harmful pest to coffee across the globe. In this ecosystem, his flying friends act as natural pest control. “Everything has a purpose. It’s all connected.”

Caballero’s history with this land runs deep. His grandfather managed the farm. His mother was born here. He began working at Finca Lérida as a naturalist, long before coffee became his focus. Then, in 2006, he tasted some natural-processed Catuai, a high-yield coffee bean known for its notes of chocolate and caramel, for the first time. It was a moment that transformed his understanding of flavor. Today, Caballero leads coffee tours and nature walks in Boquete, a town in Panama’s Chiriquí province, guiding visitors through coffee tastings and the landscape that shapes each cup.

Finca Lérida dates back to 1917, when Toleff Mönniche — a Norwegian engineer who worked on the Panama Canal — settled in Boquete and later planted coffee. Beginning in the 1940s, he welcomed naturalists to study at the farm. The second owner built a cluster of bungalows to host guests. Under the current owner, Maria Amoruso, that tradition continues, now with 22 rooms and suites, each set within the mountain region’s dense greenery, with coffee beans growing on crowded branches and those security birds warbling nearby.

Finca Lérida and Boquete’s surrounding farms anchor Panama’s reputation for growing some of the best Gesha coffee beans on the planet, often handpicked by members of the Ngäbe and Buglé Indigenous groups, who understand the natural rhythm of this part of the world better than anyone else. The Gesha variety (often spelled Geisha due to mislabeling in the 1930s) originated in Ethiopia’s forested Gesha region and arrived in Central America in the 1950s. Panama became the variety’s proving ground decades later, when a Gesha appeared at the Best of Panama specialty coffee competition in 2004. Its floral flavor earned it the highest rating that year.

Just next door to Finca Lérida is Elida Estate, one of three farms belonging to Lamastus Family Estates. In 2023, it set a record for the highest-ever Gesha coffee lot, fetching $10,013 per kilogram. (Jaw-dropping as it was, that sum was bested in 2025 by the nearby Hacienda La Esmeralda, with a lot that sold for $30,204 per kilogram.) A number like that could easily turn a farm into an exclusive operation, but the Lamastus family keeps the gates open, with daily tours and tastings so everyone can get a sip. The Tour La Torre & Meet the Producer experience brings guests across the estate aboard a Can-Am Defender utility vehicle and includes a meeting with coffee producer Wilford Lamastus, along with a tasting of the farm’s most prized beans. Each sip delivers aromas of jasmine, orange blossom, bergamot, and ... is that gardenia? As the coffee cools, citrus and tropical fruit notes continue to bloom, offering a rare instance when you might want your caffeine kick to come lukewarm.

At Altieri Specialty Coffee, a visit begins with an origin story and a rather large photo of Pope Francis accepting a gift of the farm’s coffee beans. Barista Leticia Castillo Candanedo leads a walk through rain-darkened grass to see the farm’s coffee varieties, through the production facilities, and up to the second-floor cupping room. The tour circles back to the café for cortados and Gesha coffee ice cream.

From Altieri, a winding road takes you toward the town of Volcán, passing the Palmira plots of Hacienda La Esmeralda along the way. Once you reach Volcán proper, Janson Family Coffee is ready to welcome you. The farm traces its roots back to the early days of the Panama Canal and its bean-growing operations have been perfected since. Today, the coffee is sourced by companies worldwide and favored by barista champions on the competition circuit. The café and cupping room are perched above the tree line, while below, the nursery fields stretch out with neat rows of baby coffee plants, showing promise with each blooming white flower. 

Coffee isn’t the only reason to stop in town, as there is far more to see and taste. Not too far from Janson Family Coffee, a charming kitten with inky fur and white whiskers greets guests at Restaurante Cerro Brujo, chef Patricia Miranda Allen’s low-key haunt. Lunch is served on the terrace, offering a daily menu shaped by what’s growing in the family’s organic vegetable garden. On sunny days, tables move out into the garden; on others, the rain provides a soft local soundtrack as each drop plunks down on the patio. “I have great pride in belonging to this land,” Allen says. “Our coffee is a perfect example of the value of good agricultural practices.”

That same love of land, labor, and legacy carries all the way to Panama City. From the rooftop of Saint Francis of Assisi Church in the Casco Viejo neighborhood, three black birds perch on a white statue overlooking the historic district. It’s a bird’s-eye view you can have, too. Just look for the photo of a cappuccino. 

Midway up the seemingly never-ending staircase of the church, Alec’s Café glows beneath blue stained-glass windows. From the top of the steps, the curves of Frank Gehry’s Biomuseo rise from the causeway to one side; to the other, terra-cotta rooftops form undulating waves over Casco Viejo.

Along the waterfront, sunrises and sunsets streak the sky in coral and pink, a scene best viewed from Sofitel Legend Casco Viejo. Once known as Club Unión, the building has hosted dignitaries, including Queen Elizabeth II. Today, it stages its own kind of ceremony through a Gesha presentation featuring Santos Café’s Finca La Mimada from the Renacimiento region of Chiriquí, prepared by lead barista Roberto Arauz. Designed by culinary expert Jorge Chanis, the experience highlights both the nation’s terroir and its ancestral rituals surrounding coffee. “For many guests, it may be their first encounter with a Panamanian Gesha,” Chanis says. “We want it to be unforgettable. Not just because of the flavor, but because of the story, the landscape, and the people behind it. Gesha is a national treasure.” 

Soon, another chapter will open in the highlands. Willem Boot of Boot Coffee in San Rafael, California, plans to welcome visitors to his Finca Sophia coffee farm in Panama later this year. “In theory, you can grow Gesha anywhere,” he says. “But here, wedged between two oceans, the Pacific Ocean on the left and the Caribbean on the right, Panama has the volcanics, the rainfall, and the temperature.” 

As Boot adds, Panama certainly has an ideal climate, but it also has one more essential ingredient. “What makes the coffee truly extraordinary,” he says, “isn’t just the genetics of the coffee and the land — it’s the people that make it shine.”