Panama - Mt. Totumas Coffee, Geisha Washed

Mount Totumas Coffee won 1st Place at the 2023 Best of Panama in the Geisha Natural category and maintained an impressive standing as 6th Place Geisha Natural Auction Lot in 2024.

Established in 2008 by the Dietrich brothers, Jeff and Michael, initially as a an off-the-grid, rustic luxe, cloud forest lodge on 140 hectares bordering Central America’s largest highland national park, La Amistad, Mount Totumas was encouraged toward high-end coffee cultivation by neighboring fincas with decades of expertise in producing award-winning Panama Geisha, evinced by decorated track records in the Best of Panama.

Mentored by Ratibor and Tessie Hartmann of the acclaimed Finca Hartmann family legacy, the Dietrich family planted their first 500 Panama Geisha trees in 2014. To date, they have 10,000 coffee trees including Caturra, Catuai, and Typica flourishing at altitudes 1800 masl and higher, amid the legendary, biodiverse, and canopied Chiriqui terroir.

Under the leadership of Jeff’s daughter, Karin de la Rosa who steers operations according to their philosophy of holistic, ecologically-oriented specialty coffee production, as well as the support of his wife Alma, Mount Totumas is poised to continue playing an important part in endearing the most discerning connoisseurs to the Panama Geisha.

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 Karin dela Rosa and her family, allows them to direct the flavor character of the Panama Geisha towards a seemingly endless diversity of delightfully surprising trajectories through innovative techniques.