Very Special
This VS is a blast from Sample’s past, pre-dating even the Very Special designation. We last featured Elida Estate coffee back in 2014, and it was a hit with the roasting team and customers. Now, ten years later, we’re returning to Wilford Lamastus’ farm once again, to feature his delicious Catuai lot.
What makes this coffee so prestigious? For starters, Panama is one of the most revered coffee origins in the industry. The high altitude farms and perfect weather conditions make for a complex and dynamic cup of coffee. Plenty of Panama’s farms also feature competition grade varietals, like the infamous Gesha, and often use experimental processing to elevate the inherent flavours even further.
More specifically, however, Wilford Lamastus is a big name producer even within the context of Panama. He’s won the Best of Panama coffee contest multiple times in the past, bringing a high level of prestige to his farm and product. Elida Estate itself has a wealth of terroir benefits to offer, in addition to Wilford’s personal accolades. The coffee here is grown in deep young volcanic soil, with plenty of shade in a microclimate of very low temperatures. This coffee excels in every area, which we think makes for a Very Special cup indeed.
Location
More than half of this farm is located within the Volcan Baru National Park a protected ecological reserve and sanctuary for exotic plants, birds and mammals (like the tropical tiger). Hunting has been prohibited in this farm for decades. The Baru volcano is one of the highest volcanoes in Central America, with 14,000ha and 7 different climate zones depending on the elevation. Coffee in this farm is grown up to 1,950m.
This coffee is produced under a unique world-condition for several reasons: first the farm is located at a very high elevation, it is grown in rich young volcanic soils, the temperatures are low, there is lots of fog and mist during the dry season, the coffee trees are surrounded by virgin-native cloudy rain forest, the nights get cold here thereby taking a tree from 4 ½ to 5 ½ years to start producing (2 or 3 years longer to produce than average), these low temperatures also extend the ripening time 1 month longer (thereby the development of the bean). All these unique growing conditions show in a distinguished cup.
ASD processing
Wilford takes a lot of care in processing his coffee, using a method referred to as ASD: Anaerobic Slow Dry. The Anaerobic aspect in this case involves removing the carbon dioxide emitted by the coffee fruit from the tanks. The coffee is then left to ferment for 5 days. Additional oxygen is also prevented from entering.
Afterwards, the coffee fruit goes into drying beds for a period of 23 days. This is where the Slow Dry aspect comes into play. In coffee processing, any period of drying over 20 days is considered slow. This serves to deepen the flavour profile over a long period of time, and requires a great deal of care and precision to pull off with consistency.
