Panama set a new price record for a kilo of coffee at the specialty coffee auctions when the Carmen Estate lot in Paso Ancho, district of Tierras Altas (Chiriquí), managed to sell a kilo for of $10,005.

This has caused astonishment among connoisseurs, it is a grain of the geisha variety in the washing process. The lot in question was acquired by the company Coffee Techo Ltd of New Zealand.

The coffee, which has caused a sensation in the demanding specialty market, is grown on the Carmen Estate at an altitude of 1,900 meters above sea level. A production that began in 1960 and which belonged to the Franceschi family, is now owned by the Chinese company Dashang Group.

Jean-Paul Langenstein, manager and representative of the company, said he was very impressed and happy because Panamanian coffee is in great demand worldwide.

Hunter Tedman, president of the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama (SCAP), considered that the auction had an excellent response from global buyers.

“Expectations have been exceeded and we find ourselves with a new world record in coffee prices. It demonstrates once again the great confidence that buyers have in our producers," said Tedman.

The lot of Carmen Estate, it is a geisha variety with a washed process, which expresses the pure form of the "terroir" of the grain, which translates into the intrinsic flavor and aroma of the geisha variety; and that, together with the soil and climate conditions, make Panama produce the best coffees in the world, explained Tedman.

The auction began at 6:30 pm Tuesday on the website https://auction.bestofpanama.org/en/lots/auction/best-of-panama-2023, where 50 lots of the best coffee produced in our country.

Of those 50 lots of coffee, 18 correspond to natural geisha, 18 lots of geisha coffee in the washed process and 14 lots correspond to varietals.

OTHER VARIETIES
In the natural process of geisha coffee batches, the batch from De la Rosa Mount Totumas, located in the district of Tierras Altas, reached a price of $2,504.00 a kilo. While in the varietals, the Chicho Gallo variety coffee from Guarumo Coffee Farm, from the Renacimiento district, reached a price of $412 per kilo.

The auction took more than 15 hours.