Panama Finca Auromar Pacamara Natural

Arrived by airfreight just days ago, a Direct Trade coffee. Back in stock by popular demand. This was a popular selection last year.

The Panama highlands that surround the Baru Volcano, the cities of Boquete and Volcan, produce some of the top coffees in the world today. While this area has become synonymous with and the homeland of Geisha variety coffee, other varieties are also produced, including Caturra, Catuai, Typica as well as Pacamara, which has become more popular with producers in recent seasons. We have visited Finca Auromar a couple of times over the years. It's hard to reach due to steep inclines, but once on the farm, it feels like a preserve. Monkeys are chattering somewhere in the background and the air is cool.

For those interested in some background, Pacamara is a cultivar of two varieties, the Pacas type of Bourbon (Paca) and the very large bean Maragogipe (Mara). A cultivar is a human made cultivation of varieties, culti + var. The Paca  variety was discovered in 1949 on a farm owned by the Pacas family in the Santa Ana region of El Salvador and later was part of a pedigree selection of the Salvadoran Institute for Coffee Research. Maragogipe was first discovered in 1870 in a Brazilian city of the same name.  These two varieties, when combined, produce a coffee that can have very big body or be more delicate depending upon terroir, climate and farming practices.

• Crop season: 2024-25
• Name: Auromar Estate Pacamara
  
• Producer: Roberto Brenes
• Growing Region: Jurutungo Candela, Volcan
• Varietal: Pacamara 100%
• Elevation: 1600 meters (5250 feet)
• Processing: Natural
• Drying:  African beds
  

The Auromar coffee farm is like nature preserve

Roberto Brenes is a really interesting person with interests well outside that of coffee farming. Farming coffee is what he plans to do through his retirement years and the land has been in his wife's family for generations. Roberto was for a time, the head of the Panamanian stock exchange; he has also served as senior officer of an international Panamanian banking chain, so he has a lot of knowledge of international finance; Panama because of its location and the canal in particular, is a tremendously growing country with interests from all over the globe. Panama City, the capital, is sometimes referred to as the Dubai of the Americas and a place where there is much international investment. It wasn't always that way. During the Noriega years when under dictator rule, Panamanians suffered and lived in fear. A younger Brenes was an outspoken critic of the Noriega regime and was twice exiled from the country, something of a badge of honor when looking back on it. Educated in Panama through secondary school Brenes went to Columbia University in New York where he earned an MBA, which led him to work in banking when he returned to his country. Later, while exiled and in South America he elevated his career to investment banking. Post Noriega and exile, when Panama was coming out from under dictatorship, Brenes was offered the role of Central Banker for the country. The zeal he brings to everything in his life is now being poured into his coffee farming and the results are obvious.

Brenes had been engaged in Ironman triathlon competitions, for which he clearly has a love, until an accident sidelined him a couple of years ago. 

In July Roberto Brenes, who is now 80 years old, just climbed Mt Kilimanjaro.  His fortitude is noteworthy, as is his coffee.  We are happy to count ourselves among Roberto's friends and acquaintances and look forward to our next meeting.