To get to the mountain town of Boquete, you fly to Panama City, get a small plane flight on Aeroperlas to the coastal town of David on the Pacific, and then a bus ride up the mountain which takes just 30 minutes.

The Feria de Las Floras y Cafe is in January in Boquete, and is definitely the season and the occasion to visit! For a NY Times travel article on Boquete, click here.

The judging was Monday through Wednesday and the last of the judges arrived on Monday morning. There were 26 coffees entered in the competition and 1 had been disqualified for having a noticeable taint in the cup (rare among high quality Panamanian coffees).

There was a total of 16 judges and 6-12 cups were prepared from each sample ...So there was a lot of slurping going on. There were 3 cupping sessions, then a finalist session for the top scoring samples.

This was the first day after the first cupping session, and we are discussing our results. The joker on the left of the frame is me.

Standing in front of a 20' tall typica tree on Finca La Fortuna. The farm was unkempt for several years and the trees were not pruned.

The coffee trees were in beautiful shape and still blooming although it was late in the crop cycle for this.

If you have never smelled coffee flowers, they are sweet -like jasmine but not as overwhelming.

Caturra tree with flowers in Boquete

There were actually new flowers on the same branch as very young coffee cherries. The abundant flowering is a good sign for lots of coffee cherry in next years crop, but the young seeds are not wanted at this time in the season - they make the tree expend energy that should be directed toward flowering and growth for next year.

In the mornings and afternoons we had breaks between the cupping sessions to look around. I woke up with the birds at 5 am every morning and wet running. This is a hilltop view of dawn in Boquete.

I love dogs so I couldn't pass up a picture at the local Catholic church in Boquete

All the judges found Boquete's local cafe amusing. Peter from Starbuck's was one of the judges and he said he would send this along to headquarters as a joke. I knew he was kidding ... but I can't help but think it will end up on some humorless lawyers desktop and they'll send a letter out.

Sr. Ratibor Hartmann

A very amusing sign to warn hunters to stay off the Finca.

Sr. Hartmann inspecting coffee stored in parchment. This is his special wood bodega that, some say, imparts special qualities to his coffee.

To the right, from top to bottom:

Sr. Hartmann is a naturalist and was a scientific lab technician working with zoologists before taking over the family farm. He has an amazing collection of insects collected from the farm, including the incredibly huge Rhinoceros Beetles seen here, about 7 or 8 inches in length.

Here you can see coffee trees planted under tall shade trees. Some jerk stepped in front of my shot and messed it up... :-)

What is this scary photo? It's a Jaguar skin on the wall of Sr. Hartmann's home. Regrettably, this jaguar was killing all the dogs and other livestock in the area some years ago, and the farmers feared it would kill a child (they all walk the to school or down long farm roads to the bus).

Sr Fernandez with Scott Merle of Batdorf & Bronson, Chris from Joffrey's Coffee, Hirsoshi Tsuchiya of Unicafe Japan, and Bill Seemers of Orleans Coffee Exchange

They have a site at www.hotelpanamonte.com There is another wonderful coffee farm with lodging in the hills outside Boquete: www.coffeeestateinn.com

Price Petersen is a coffee farmer in Boquete and an outspoken member of the SCAA on environmental, farming and coffee market issues. He also drives a Hummer.

Panama has amazing birds and flowers, and if either of those interest you and you never visit Boquete, you are really missing out. Here are 2 great things together, flowers and in the background coffee trees.

Price Petersen shows "skeleton" pruning method used on his farm.

There are some beautiful dogs in Panama too! This one fits on a dashboard.

View of La Berlina farmhouse and mill from above.

The original family farm house was on top of the mill. This is the second story interior with beautiful woodwork from trees harvested and milled on the farm.

I love graffiti. Here is some markings on a shed on Finca La Fortuna

Oh, back to the cupping! On the first day all us judges spent quite a lot of time "calibrating our palates." Because we all cup and have our own idiosyncratic ways of doing things, its important for everyone to get of the same page in both terms and technique.

The cupping was exhausting considering that there was 6 to 12 samples per lot (26) and then the final re-cupping of the highest rated coffees.

Aaron and John of JG Bean in Vancouver, as the judges calibrate palates on a test sample.

Peter of Starbucks ponders his scores. While some question Starbucks retail practices, they are heroes among coffee producers for the high premiums they pay and long-term relationships they sustain with growers.

From top to bottom at right:

Scott Merle, green coffee buyer for Batdorf & Bronson does some spittin'

Scott Reed of Royal Coffee gets something out of his eye... behind him is the other Scott and in the red is Bob Fulmer of Royal Coffee

James of Royal Coffee New York was the head judge for the cupping, and did an outstanding job! Here he is doing the cupper's sucking and spitting routine.

As a parting jab, I suffered a bit of karma for all those bad Canadian jokes I tried to pass off on the trip. The National paper from Panama City, reporting on the cupping competition, included a photo with me in their layout, and labeled me as "from Canada!"

The Coffee Library

• Roasting Basics Information Sheet
• Stovetop Corn Popper Roasting (Whirley-Pop)
• Stovetop Pan or Wok Roasting
• Oven Roasting
• Air Popper Roasting
• Coffee Blending Basics
• "Degree of Roast" Pictorial
• Many more information sheets...
  Sweet Maria's Roasting Appliance Tip Sheets: Select a tip sheet from this list... FreshRoast Tip Sheet Hearthware i-Roast Tip Sheet Nesco Coffee Roaster Hot Top Roasting Tip Sheet Hearthware iRoast Tip Sheet Caffe Rosto Tip Sheet SwissMar Alpenrost Tip Sheet Zach & Dani's Tip Sheet Hearthware Precision Tip Sheet More Roasting Tip Sheets Behmor Tip Sheet