Panama - Chevas Coffee Estate, Geisha Washed Lot 69

Founded in 2016 by then 18-year-old José Luis Chevas, the eponymous Chevas Coffee Estate debuted within the Top 10 auction lots at the 2024 Best of Panama, placing 9th in the Geisha Natural category.

Attuned to the esteemed stature of the finest coffees in the cosmopolitan cultural landscape, José Luis honors the agricultural roots established by his grandfather in the 1970s by steering their half-century-old estate — originally dedicated to large-scale production of food crops and later on coffee — toward a greater focus on quality, charting a path toward increased relevance and sustainable prosperity.

Neighboring fellow BOP awardees in El Salto, Boquete, Chevas Coffee sits at 1,750 masl amid distinctive, beneficial microclimates where Panama Geisha and other varieties like Maragogype, Catuai, and Caturra also thrive.

Among the new generation of Best of Panama producers, José Luis represents the integration of deep reverence for tradition with bold ambition to play a significant part in strengthening Panamanian coffee’s future.

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 acquired expertise of award-winning emergent producers like the Jose Luiz Chevas allows them to direct the flavor character of the Panama Geisha towards a seemingly endless diversity of delightfully surprising trajectories through innovative techniques.