Origin guideCentral America
Panama Panamanian speciality coffee
Panama is a small coffee producer with a big reputation. Its highland farms in Chiriquí grow some of the most sought-after coffees in the world, alongside clean, sweet coffees for every day.
The field notes
Panama at a glance
- Harvest
November to March
- Production
About 75,000 60 kg bags (2024/25)
- Main regions
Boquete · Volcán · Renacimiento
- Common varietals
Geisha · Caturra · Catuaí · Typica · Bourbon
Production figure: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service country production data for 2024/25. Panama is not listed separately in USDA’s July 2026 Coffee: World Markets and Trade report.
When is it harvested, and how is it processed? See our guide to coffee harvesting and processing.
Chapter 01The story
History of coffee in Panama
Coffee reached Panama in the late 19th century, brought by European immigrants. They first planted it in the lower, coastal parts of Chiriquí Province in the west of the country, then moved up into the highlands as pests and disease took their toll.
Boquete, a valley on the slopes of Volcán Barú, became the oldest and best-known coffee district, with coffee grown there since at least 1890. For much of the 20th century coffee was one crop among many, and Panama stayed a small producer next to its neighbours.
Output peaked at around 200,000 bags a year in the mid-1990s and has fallen since. Rather than chase volume, a small group of producers formed the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama in the late 1990s and set up the Best of Panama competition to show off their best lots.
Chapter 02Geisha
How Geisha put Panama on the map
Geisha, also spelled Gesha, traces back to seeds collected in Ethiopia in the 1930s. It found its way to the CATIE research centre in Costa Rica, and around the 1960s it was brought to Panama, valued at first for its resistance to leaf rust rather than its flavour.
For decades it sat quietly among other varieties. That changed in 2004, when the Peterson family of Hacienda La Esmeralda in Boquete entered a lot of pure Geisha into Best of Panama. Judges had never tasted a 100% Geisha coffee before. It won, and sold at auction for around US$21 a pound, a record at the time.
Prices have kept climbing. In 2025, a 20 kg lot of washed Geisha from Hacienda La Esmeralda sold at the Best of Panama auction for US$30,204 per kilo, a world record.
Chapter 03Today
Coffee in Panama today
Most of Panama’s coffee grows in the Chiriquí highlands, around Boquete, Volcán and Renacimiento, mostly between about 1,000 and 1,600 metres. Growers range from smallholders of the Indigenous Ngäbe and Buglé peoples to mid-sized and larger estates, many founded by European or North American immigrants and their descendants.
Winds over the Cordillera Central bring a cool mist known locally as bajareque, which slows ripening. Most coffee is washed or natural, and many farms also work with honey and anaerobic processing.
In the cup, everyday Panamanian coffees such as Caturra and Catuaí tend to be clean, mild and sweet, with caramel, nutty and gentle citrus notes. Geisha is something else: delicate and tea-like, with jasmine, bergamot and peach.
Taste the neighbours
Like Panamanian coffee? Try its neighbours
If you like Panama’s clean, sweet washed coffees, Costa Rica and Colombia are a good next step. They grow many of the same varieties, such as Caturra, at high altitude, and give a similarly clean cup with bright acidity.
