Panama - Finca Deborah Synergy - Archers Lot

Jamison Savage of Finca Deborah, Iris Estate, and Savage Coffees is known throughout the specialty coffee world due to his pioneering methods.

Engaged in progressive processing techniques and farming practices respectful of nature, Jamison lets the most favorable, naturally occurring sensory nuances of a coffee shine on the palate. It’s a feat accomplished by few and evidently appreciated worldwide, as national and world coffee competitors frequently choose to showcase his coffees.

2016 saw Finca Deborah in the limelight when Taiwan’s Berg Wu won the World Barista Championship using a Geisha from the estate. Since then, numerous national champions have entrusted Jamison to design coffees for their routines on the world stage. Among them are our very own WBrC representative David Disuanco and France's Charity Cheung.

The Finca Deborah story started long before 2016 and far away from Panama though. It was in the early 2000s when Jamison, at the height of his finance career in the US, decided a change was in order. He longed for a freer lifestyle to give himself and his family a chance to spend more time outdoors and to travel. At the same time, he was looking for a real estate asset to fill a gap in his investment portfolio.

In our 2022 Producer’s Talk, Jamison shared that they were choosing between Panama and New Zealand. Panama eventually won out for practical reasons and the sheer beauty and promise of the land.

Their deliberation and preparation took about five years and culminated in 2008, the year the Savage family uprooted and started anew on foreign soil. They made their new home in the Volcan region of the Chiriqui province, the seat of Panama Geisha cultivation and home to Finca Deborah, Iris Estate, and Savage Coffees.

Finca Deborah is Jamison Savage’s foremost terroir-cognizant coffee plantation at 1,700 to 1,900 masl in Volcan, Chiriqui. The farm, which rests beneath a rainforest canopy, is organically cultivated and entirely solar-powered. In those pristine surroundings, the elegant Panama Geisha trees flourish, so cherries simply take in and contain the innate lushness and vibrance of the environment.

Panama Geisha, of which Green Tip Geisha is one variation, 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 Jamison Savage 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, such as this Natural Koji Fermentation process with a Washed Finish, which add to the complexity of the cup’s character — for example more layers of flavor or better mouthfeel — without compromising its inherent qualities from terroir and variety.