About us

Award Winning Farms

The unique conditions at which the coffee grows can be listed as follows: high elevation, rich volcanic soils, unique microclimate, low temperatures, microorganism beneficial to coffee, unique coffee yeasts, fungi, fog and mist during the dry season, virgin-native cloudy rain forest surrounds the coffee trees, low temperatures at nights (in the highest areas in can occasionally reach below 10 C) which elongates the production period and of the tree and the ripening of the fruit which is a crucial attribute for the development of the bean. These attributes create a distinguished cup.

The Lamastus Family Estates

The Lamastus Family Estates is a coffee company founded by Robert Lamastus in 1918 and the continued by his son Thatcher. The Lamastus Family Estates comprises three coffee plantations in the Panamanian Highlands. Elida Estate is the original farm founded by Robert Lamastus in 1918, El Burro Estate originally owned by Amado Boutet (Thatcher's father in-law), and Luito Geisha founded by Luito Lamastus in 2014 (Thatcher’s son). All the farms are located in, with very different terroirs, within the Panamanian highland territories. Each farm, because of its location, is very unique due to the microclimates and microorganisms surrounding each coffee plantation.

Elida Estate

About half of the Elida Estate farm is located within the Volcan Baru National Park, a protected ecological reserve and sanctuary for exotic plants, birds, butterflies and mammals (like the tropical tiger). The Baru Volcano is one of the highest volcanoes in Central America, at 3,475m, with an area of 14,000ha and 7 different climate zones, depending on the altitude. Elida’s terroir is enriched by all the natural qualities from the National Park. Growing coffee plants surrounded by these wonderful natural attributes at elevations ranging from 1670 up to 2060+masl are some of the many reasons this coffee is so unique.

The unique world conditions at which Elida coffee grows can be listed as follows: High elevation, rich volcanic soils, unique microclimate, low temperatures, microorganism beneficial to coffee, unique coffee yeasts, fungis, fog and mist during the dry season, virgin-native cloudy rain forest surrounds the coffee trees, low temperatures at nights (in the highest part in occasions below 10 C/50F) which elongates the production period and of the tree and the ripening of the fruit which is a crucial attribute for the development of the bean. These attributes create a distinguished cup.

Coffee quality is directly related to the elevation where the coffee is grown, the higher you grow it, the better the quality, nevertheless you can only go so high because at cold temperatures below 10C/50F for long periods, the trees won’t produce coffee.

El Burro Estate

El Burro Estate, one of the southernmost coffee farms in Panama, part of the estate is inside the Baru Volcano National Park (BVNP). Coffee in this farm grows starting from 1550masl up to 1800masl, with a mean elevation of 1,675masl, young volcanic soils, pristine forest, unique micro-climate, with different temperatures, winds, and more precipitation than other farms of the region during the rainy season.

The coffee from this farm is distinctive for several reasons: first, the farm is located at a very high elevation with rich young volcanic soils, the temperatures are low, it is dry during the dry season (opposed to other coffee estates from the Lamastus Family Estates) and precipitation during wet season is very heavy (average precipitation is 3200mm per year) , and the coffee trees are surrounded by a virgin-native cloudy rain forest.

At this location the nights get cold and the low temperatures can extend the ripening time for one month longer, and reflects directly in the ripening of the coffee fruit. All these unique growing conditions, like in Elida, show in a distinguished cup of coffee.

Luito Estate

This is the northernmost farm of Boquete. It is located very close to the mountain range and part of the farm (not the coffee plantation) is inside the Parque Internacional de la Amistad (International Friendship Park). Because of its biodiversity, the PILA is a World Heritage Site (WHS) protected by UNESCO. Although there are many WHS in the world, most of them are man-made. There are only 225 natural World Heritage Sites and Panama in an area of 77,000 sq meters has three of those, PILA being one of them.

Being so close to the mountain range the rain pattern at this farm is unique and we get plenty of rain during the dry season. The constant rain maintains everything green and the coffee grows all year-round. Due to the rain and the microclimate this farm has a different flowering period than most of the farms in Boquete.