Casa Blanca Geisha

Creativa Coffee District (CCD) is a new project developed by the team at La Palma y El Tucán. Located in Boquete, Panama, CCD aims to enact the same economic and sustainability practices they developed through their Neighbors and Crops program in Colombia. By converting a high volume, traditional wet mill into a cutting edge processing facility, the team at CCD is able to work with local farms to source cherries from one of the world's greatest coffee growing regions while providing higher incomes and agricultural support to producers.

As long time partners with La Palma y El Tucán, Bird Rock Coffee Roasters is honored to work with Creativa Coffee District in elevating industry standards. The Producer: Enrique Pretel Enrique Pretel is a 77-year-old coffee producer in Boquete. His farm is six hectares in size, currently cultivating 7,000 coffee trees. He has had the property for a total of 12 years, with eight of them devoted almost exclusively to coffee production. Enrique sees the potential value in coffee as a means of economic stability and employs up to 10 people in the area to ensure the highest quality cherry.

He thinks that art and coffee are the perfect combinations to keep youth interested in the industry. The Process: Extended Static Cherry "For this process, the ambient environment is crucial. We seal the cherry into plastic tanks, with no oxygen present. By creating an anaerobic environment, we allow certain bacteria and yeast to develop at a slower rate. When we allow these fermentations to sit untouched for longer periods of time, we see the profile completely change. As the pH levels drop and the acids change, more complex flavors arise, bringing a shining effervescence to the cup. It’s after 72 hours that these changes become apparent, with some batches left to ferment up to 216 hours. "After fermentation, we set the cherries to dry either on raised beds or our patio. Our natural environment is scorching hot around harvest time... The high ambient temperature of our patio works to halt the fermentation processes of each coffee once it’s reached its desired pH and Brix levels, adding another layer of consistency to our methods. "It is so hot in fact, the afternoon sun threatens to dry the cherry faster on one side than the other. To prevent this uneven drying, we move the cherry every two hours. Then, before night falls, we pile the coffee into small cherry mountains and cover them to prevent any risk of rain. In the morning, we spread them out and start it all again. The cycle continues for an average of 15 days, until the coffee reaches 11% moisture level."