Panama - Elida Estate Catuai ASD

The Lamastus Family Estate has accrued the most Best of Panama awards to date. They won the Producer of the Year Award in 2022. This followed their two peat victories in 2018 for the Washed Geisha category and in 2019 for both Washed and Natural.

Lamastus Family Estates is a coffee company founded in 1918 by Robert Lamastus. They have evolved with the times under the leadership of Robert's son Thatcher, grandson Wilford Sr., and great-grandson Wilford Jr. and have accrued the most BOP awards to date.

Their four farms are Elida, El Burro, Luito, and Sendero. Each one benefits from discrete microclimates which, together with variety, are primarily responsible for their coffees' intricacies and flavor potential.

Elida Estate is the original and flagship farm. It is also the company's headquarters, where the family spends most of their time and where Wilford Sr. would be found working every day. It was named in tribute to the Lamastus family matriarch, Elida, who single-handedly raised her children and took charge of all farm operations after her husband Robert passed away in the early 1930s. Almost two decades would pass before any of her children could assist.

About half of Elida Estate is located within the Volcan Baru National Park, one of Central America’s highest volcanoes, which is also a protected ecological reserve and sanctuary for exotic flora and fauna.

Among the Estate’s unique world conditions are high elevation, volcanic soils, low temperatures, beneficial microorganisms, mist during the dry season, and virgin-native cloudy rain forest surrounding the coffee trees. The low night-time temperatures allow for protracted ripening of the coffee cherries, which helps make them healthier and the resulting coffee beans sweeter.

Recognizing they have been blessed with the ideal terroir, the Lamastus family profoundly believes their coffees are a gift from mother nature. Respectful of that, they veer away from inoculating the cherries during fermentation and instead favor innovation through refinements in drying, supported by a strict protocol at every stage.

The Anaerobic Slow Dry (ASD) process optimizes a traditional method where cherries are first fermented in sealed tanks before being transferred to multi-layered drying beds. Apart from the deliberately prolonged drying phase, which would take at least 60 days, another innovation is using a special plastic mesh and metal in the beds’ construction, not wood, as used by the first Lamastus Family Estate generation.

Through ASD, this Elida Catuai micro-lot developed confectionary sweetness and a syrupy, liquor-like character complemented by subtle acidity.