MILAN – Panama set a new price record for coffee on Wednesday with international buyers bidding $1,300 and 50 cents a pound for Olympus washed Geisha, a Geisha coffee from Finca Sophia Olympia in the Chiriqui highlands.
Close behind in the high stakes bidding $1000 and 50 cents a pound was the natural geisha Jaguar by Tessie and Rattibor Hartmann, a, from the Guarumo Coffee farm, located in Santa Clara de Renacimiento.
“This is is an incentive to continue producing the specialty coffee that puts Panama on the world map of the best coffees, “ said Plinio Ruiz, president of the Association of Specialty Coffee Producers
The online auction began, at 6 pm with 50 lots of coffee offered in the varieties: Natural Geisha, washed Geisha, pacamara, traditional washed and traditional natural, and continued until after 10.30.
The Olympus of Finca Sophia is a grain grown on a farm located in New Switzerland, in the Highlands t of Chiriqui at an altitude of 2,100 meters above sea level. It is owned by Hellen Russel, Brooke Mc Donnell, Willem Boot, and Catherine Cadloni, and managed by coffee expert Kelly Hartmann.
Harttmann said that that the achievement is a recognition for so much teamwork, from the one who cleans the plots, the one who collects the grain, the one who processes it, and for all those involved in the activity.
Last year, during the virtual auction, the highest price paid for Panama coffee was $1,229 per pound for the Lamastus family’s Elida Geisha.
