Buy 2 or more bags of coffee and get free shipping within the Czech Rep.

Graciano Cruz

Graciano Cruz is a very special and important person to us. We met him at Expo SCAA where we hit it off straight away. Not long after Kamila and Yara went to Panama and El Salvador to work on Graciano´s farms. His coffee was the very first coffee we offered as a brand new roastery.

Farm: Los Lajones and Emporium
Location: Boquete, Panama (map)
Variety: geisha, caturra, catuaí, pacamara
Area: 160 ha and 14 ha
Altitude: 1600 - 2000 masl
Harvest: December - April
Competitions: Best of Panama 2020 - Emporium Caturra 5th place, Los Lajones Geisha 6th place
Purchasing his coffee: since 2010

About the Producer

Graciano Cruz is one of the greatest coffee producers in the world. Apart from his farms in Panama and El Salvador he also works on projects in Ethiopia, Peru, Taiwan and Brazil. Graciano is a leading example of ecological agriculture and natural coffee processing method.

About the Farm

Both farms Los Lajones and Emporium are situated at the altitude of 1600-2000 masl. They are ones of the highest located farms in the Central America. At the bottom of the farms you can find coffee trees of caturra and catuai hidden under the shade of Inga trees. In the upper part of the farms you will find the pride of the owner and the world´s greatest speciality – a garden full of young legendary geisha trees, which grow here symbiotically with bamboo trees.

Lajones has got an area of 160 ha. Forty hectares are used for growing cattle. Thirty-five hectares are used for growing coffee trees. Graciano Cruz altogether with his son Graciano Jr. bought this farm in 1992. Before that the farm belonged to Alberto Rubio and was used for growing cattle only.

The farm Emporium lies a little bit lower with its fourteen hectares. It was originally named Dona Berta. Graciano bought the farm from his brother Eduardo in 2017. Before that this farm was owned by three brothers, who grew coffee here since the 70´s.

Both farms are the first farms in the whole country to be certified as BIO. Most of the farm pickers are memebers of the ethnic minority called Ngöbe-Buglé. Pickers on the Graciano´s farms get paid about 25 % more then any other pickers in Panama.

The climate conditions on the farms are influenced by the continental divide separating the two world oceans, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. The wet season from May to December is replaced by ´bajareque´, a mist that covers this region from January to April.

Coffee processing method

Graciano is known for his passion for natural and honey coffe processing methods. He doesn´t use a drop of water for processing his coffees. Coffee cherries are evenly and very well dried on African beds. Drying cherries in the sun is carefully done under a great supervision. African beds secure right air flow. Which protects coffee cherries from developing any mould. This process brings us a beautiful cup of coffee with sparkling acidity and typical sweetness of tropical fruit and chocolate.

Natural

Harvested cherries are spread on the African beds and dried in the sun.

Honey

It is a process when coffee skin and part of pulp are removed. And like that the cherries are dried on African beds in the sunshine. It is crucial for this method to flip coffee cherries regurarly over while drying on African beds as the cherries are very sticky.

Anaerobic process

Graciano successfully keeps up with new trends. He experiments with so called anaerobic coffee processing. It is a process when whole cherries or cherries with partly removed skin and pulp are placed into sealed tanks where it is fermneted without oxygen.

Would you like to try coffee from Graciano?

Panama Los Lajones

Panama Los Lajones

Unavailable
Your price (Incl. VAT)
365 Kč