Panama - Finca Auromar - Catalina Geisha Natural

Nestled within a highland tropical forest regarded as a natural reserve in Candela, Chiriquí, Panama — Finca Auromar, established and led by triathlete and coffee producer Roberto Brenes, is the provenance of the Best of Panama 1st Place Geisha Washed lot Firestone in 2022.

This accolade was the third time Geisha produced by Roberto and his family won the highest award at the Best of Panama, the previous wins being in 2013 and 2016 for Geisha Natural, crowning years of consistently placing among the top auction lots in the Best of Panama competition.

Finca Auromar has maintained a laudable standing in the Best of Panama since 2013. They claimed 9th place in the Geisha Washed category in 2024 and, in 2023, 8th place in Geisha Natural and 15th in Geisha Washed.

As both a Panama Geisha producer and an Ironman athlete, Roberto has always held a vision of Finca Auromar for the long game—pushing boundaries of post-harvest processing, chasing new frontiers of coffee excellence, and contributing to the national legacy of matchless coffees characterized by exceptional quality, reinforcing its hard-earned prestige among the global specialty coffee community.

Panama Geisha is a rare, delicate, and complex variety well-loved for its sweet florality and citrus highlights. Since its debut win at the Best of Panama auction in 2004, it has kept specialty coffee lovers everywhere captivated by its endless possibilities, delicacy, complexity, and clarity of flavors.

As such, it is often showcased on coffee competition stages by a great number of coffee champions, and it also continues to fetch the highest prices.

While a coffee’s truest intrinsic qualities are still largely believed to be showcased best by traditional washed processing due to the demucilaging, washing, and scrubbing steps removing all traces of fruit from the bean, the expertise of seasoned and passionate producers like Roberto Brenes allows them to direct the flavor character of the Panama Geisha towards a seemingly endless diversity of delightfully surprising trajectories.

They do this through the purposeful implementation of traditional methods like the natural and honey processes, as well as intentional and innovative processing styles.