However, here in Boquete we have lots of coffee plantations and a few of the companies offer coffee tours. And since I work at the hotel and my guests always ask me which one I could recommend, I went on the coffee tour of Cafè Ruiz.
Our guide belonged to one of the indigenous groups of Panama, the Ngobe-Buble, who even today work on coffee plantations as pickers and speak a completely different language. But of course, our guide spoke Spanish and very good English (surprising for a Panamanian). And I learned quite a lot of coffee. For example, Panama is one of the smallest coffee producers, but one of the best because one of the kind they grow is called Geisha and cost about $200 per pound. I also learned that coffee beans are red when they are picked and not brown and that the coffee fields of the expensive brand are not planted row by row, but with lots of other trees in between and kinda chaotic-looking! :-P
When we went into the packing and roasting area, we all had to wear funny hats and coats and we all looked as ridiculous as our guide.
All in all the tour took about 3 hours and at the end, we got to taste coffees with three different roasting stages and even I could tell a difference. The European roast (the lightest kind) tastes fruity and a bit like lemon. The Latin roast tastes a bit like chocolate. And the Italian roast (the darkest kind; nearly burned) tastes really bitter.
But although the real coffee growers make fun of places like Starbucks because they use a very cheap kind of coffee and change the taste through all the extra ingredients, it’s still my favourite place to get coffee! :-P
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