As the rainy season in Panama begins to wind down, the coffee season is starting to heat up. This season has been a particularly rainy one, so the coffee is coming early. However, the fresh crop of roasted coffee is still months away. Panama's Chiriqui Highlands is home to hundreds of small estates producing some of the best coffee in the world. The elevation, climate, soil and dedication to superior coffee has made Boquete Coffee prized around the world. One reason the coffee is so good is also due to the fruit trees.
Many estates were sold off during the construction boom, only to have that industry falter and the coffee industry boom. Estates that weren't sold for development are now turning them around again for coffee. If you come to Boquete and travel to the Jarramillo side of the valley, you can walk thru hectares (or acres) of land with wild coffee and oranges. Back in the day, the orange trees and coffee plants created a symbiotic relationship to grow coffee. Much of the coffee in the Boquete Valley is shade grown by default.
Traditionally, all coffee was shade grown. Most varieties of coffee are naturally intolerant of direct sunlight, and prefer a canopy of sun-filtering shade trees. The trees not only protect the coffee from direct sun, they also mulch the soil with their fallen leaves which helps retain soil moisture. The nitrogen-fixing shade trees enhance the soil, and also provide habitat for birds. The birds in turn provide natural insect control with their constant foraging. This sustainable method of farming uses little or no chemical fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides. In 1972, new hybrid varieties of coffee were developed to help increase production of the valuable crop. These new varieties produced significantly more coffee beans, were smaller and easier to harvest, and produced best in direct sunlight. Many growers cut their shade trees and switched to the new varieties. Of the 6 million acres of coffee lands, 60% have been stripped of shade trees since 1972. Only the small, low-tech farms, often too poor to afford chemicals, preserved their shade trees. Unfortunately, the new varieties of "sun" coffee came with an additional cost: the hybrids were dependent on high doses of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Soil erosion, water runoff and soil depletion caused producers to clear vast tracts of rainforest for new soil to plant, and it became apparent that this new method of growing coffee was unsustainable. The loss of the shade trees on such a large scale also caused an estimated 20% decline in migratory bird populations in the last ten years, due to habitat loss. The diminished songbird population has been noted as far away as 1500 miles from the coffee growing regions. In 1996, the movement to support shade grown coffee was sparked by the Smithsonian Institute's Migratory Bird Center, which gathered environmentalists, farmers and coffee companies to address the problem and promote awareness of shade coffee.
Link to Smithsonian Tropical Research: http://nationalzoo.si.edu/scbi/migratorybirds/science_article/default.cfm?id=47
Link to Shade Grown article: http://eartheasy.com/eat_shadegrown_coffee.htm
Some of the larger estates that are shade grown in Boquete are: Carmen Estate, Hacienda la Esmeralda, and Elida Estate; although there are many more.
To understand more about coffee and it's origins try a coffee tour when visiting Boquete:
http://www.boquetemountainsafaritours.com/coffeetours.html
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