La Esmeralda

The story

Hacienda La Esmeralda is a renowned coffee producer located in the Boquete region of Panama, owned by the Peterson family. Originally purchased by Rudolph A. Peterson in 1967, the estate transitioned from cattle and dairy farming to a focus on coffee production in the mid-1980s. The farm gained global prominence in 2004 after identifying the exceptional quality of the Geisha variety grown on their Jaramillo plots.

Challenges

The farm must navigate the complexities of maintaining consistent, world-record-level quality across different microclimates and high-altitude plots.

Innovations

The farm is credited with pioneering the modern appreciation of the Geisha variety and has refined advanced fermentation and drying techniques to achieve record-breaking competition scores.