Panama Volcán Natural Coffee

A natural-process coffee from Volcán, in the western highlands of Panama. Dried inside its fruit under the sun of a long dry season, it tastes of mango and tropical fruit, with jasmine and a soft vanilla finish.

Origin & Story

Coffee dried in its fruit needs sun, and Volcán has it. The dry season here starts around mid-December and lasts about four months, and the highland air is drier and less misty than in Boquete. That makes it a good place to spread coffee cherries out to dry.

A natural coffee is dried whole, fruit and all, rather than being pulped first. The cherries lie on raised beds or patios for weeks, turned by hand so they dry evenly, until the fruit is dark and wrinkled. The fruit's sugars move into the bean, and the cup tastes of the fruit: here mango and other tropical fruit, jasmine, and a soft vanilla finish.

Naturals have become some of Panama's most prized coffees. In 2018 a natural Geisha from Lamastus Family Estates set a Best of Panama auction record at $803 a pound, a long way from the $21 a pound that the first Geisha record reached in 2004.

Volcán's farms grow from roughly 1,200 to 1,800 meters, and the varieties include Geisha, Catuaí, Caturra and Typica. Altitude slows the ripening of the cherries, which is one reason highland naturals tend to taste sweet and clear rather than heavy.

Use a V60 and water at 92°C, a touch cooler than for a washed coffee, so the sweetness stays round. A medium-fine grind and 14.4 g of coffee for a 240 ml cup is a good start. Let the cup cool for a minute and the jasmine and vanilla come forward behind the mango.

Reading the Flavor Profile

These values are comparative editorial positions within our own catalog, calibrated so entries can be ranked against each other. They are not laboratory measurements.