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Kotowa Coffee Tour

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Kotowa Coffee Tour

  • January 15, 2006
  • Rated 5 of 5 by ext212 from New York, New York
Kotowa Coffee Tour

We started our tour of the Kotowa coffee plantation the first full day we were in Boquete after Hans of Tinamou Cottage picked up two other couples from their hotels. He started telling us about the history of the company and then led us to the old mill where all the original coffee machines still exist. Of course, new ones have been built to take advantage of today’s technology. He walked us through the entire process, from picking up the coffee beans to sorting the bad from the good ones, to processing and roasting them.

Alexander Duncan MacIntyre moved to Boquete in 1918 from Canada after reading an article about the mountains surrounding Volcan Baru, Panama's highest peak. For three generations since then, the family has cultivated and processed Arabica coffee, roasted in small batches to produce light, espresso and dark beans. The coffee cherries are picked up by Ngobe Indians, the indigenous people of Panama, up to five times a year. (Kotowa means “mountain” in the Ngobe Indian language.) The plantation sits at 4,500 feet so the soil and cold climate help develop the kind of coffee that’s rich with a chocolate aroma.

After learning about the history and the different coffees that Kotowa produces, we had the chance to do a tasting. This is the part of the tour that will make anyone a coffee snob, as Hans claims on his Web site. Now that I’ve tasted the three roasts and heard his descriptions of the beans, I don’t think I’ll ever settle for a simple Starbucks cup again.

Tours are organized daily starting at 9am for $20 a person. The fee includes the transportation to the farm and back to your hotel plus all the shots of coffee you can take. Call Hans at (507) 720-1430 or email him at info@coffeeadventures.net to make reservations. Read more about the tour at http://www.coffeeadventures.net/coffeetour.html

There is a gift shop where you can buy small packages of coffee and other souvenir items like tote bags and burlap sacks but what you really come home with is all the knowledge about coffee you thought you already had but never did.

From journal Boquete in the Mist

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