I had the fine pleasure today to meet with Willem Boot and his entire team behind Boot Coffee, for a cupping of some fine coffees. I brought two profiles of my own Finca Santa Teresa-Panama Geisha (washed), along with Willem's amazing La Mula Geisha, a natural processed powerhouse of a coffee also from Panama. Later, we sipped and chatted about many wonderful things in our current coffee culture, talk of the upcoming SCAA, etc. It was apparently a very rare occurrence, that I lucked out and was invited to join them on a day that their entire staff was actually there at the same time! This is a group of passionate, kind coffee gurus, who were welcoming and warm. I can relive this day many times over in my head.





They've done a fine job with the design and packaging of this great coffee, which grows on Willem's land in Panama, managed by his farm manager Kelly Hartmann. Willem had the design of the mule created and crafted by a local Panamanian artist who worked with fine wire files and would cut designs into brass plates as art objects there in Panama. His first version was a more straightforward mule, and after a bit of clever thought, they decided to portray the mule a bit more caffeinated!





I started my morning by entering the west coast Mecca of all things coffee roasting, Willem Boot's Coffee Lab, only to greet this fine fellow.



Andrew Barnett loves the San Franciscan and does a great deal of profiling on this beautiful machine. He, as always, is the definition of humble, gentle and kind.

Taking it all in, the beautiful scenery of this gorgeous coffee lab, with many versions of some of the finest coffee roasting and coffee lab gear available anywhere. I felt like I had entered hallowed ground. The cupping table, with Jodi preparing our samples, is a fine solid beautiful slab.



We set up a cupping of my coffee, with it's two identical profiles, with the only exception being an additional 30 seconds of development, compared to the first profile that had only one minute of p1C development. His La Mula had a days more rest on mine, and it blew mine off the table with its fruity intensity, but he and his 2nd in command Jodi Dowell Wieser had very kind things to say about my washed Geisha that was also starting to show its age.

Moving on to focus more on the La Mula, Willem kindly and gracefully detailed the history of the farms evolution, the careful, detailed efforts at processing, ( his clever shading canopies to control the natural drying process on raised beds, that open and close to better control the drying) and storage prior to transport. Willem and his brother/family have been buying coffee from Panama for over 20 years now, and he's intimately steeped in the knowledge and history of coffee from that country. When I mentioned the coffee I brought, he immediately was able to recite with impressive encyclopedic knowledge, the farm, the exact altitude, the wind directions, it's location on the Pacific side of the island etc.



Willem must have known the when, who and how to buy such a prime spot of land so high up on the hills of Panama, his farm faces the Atlantic side, and it's crop yields a far different coffee compared to others on the Pacific side. He shared with me some farm photo's of some of the finest looking coffee shrubs, absolutely exuberantly flowing full of massive gorgeous cherries. They look almost like early Bing Cherries, before they take on their ruddier tan. Absolutely enormous!

Seeing this room filled with two Giesens, two San Franciscan's, two Proasters, it was a humbling site to take in.











We cupped and sipped his coffee as members of his team came and went, busy about their day, setting up for a special video installment for their online coffee roasting training classes. The details in which Willem knows these Geisha beans and how to coax the best from them was impressive to say the least. The cup revealed just a powerhouse of intense, rounded sweet, juicy berry, vibrant florals, jasmine and red currant jelly. Probably the most interesting thing I found about this natural processed Geisha was its finish, which lingered heavenly, and went strawberry, strawberry, strawberry. It's acidity was buoyant, sparkling and elevating each distinct flavor. I swear it felt like a choir on the palate. I haven't found a natural Geisha that touches this level of quality since the Don Pachi Geisha of 2011.

Much of this crop (all of it, if Willem was willing) is disappearing quickly to Asia, Japan and Taiwan. Get your hands on some if you can. Here's how, if you're interested.

The entire day was a wonderland of excitement for a coffee nerd like me. Jodi has excitedly extended return invitations to cup and roast with them in the future and they are eagerly considering building a separate Boot Coffee Online Course for Home Roaster's on home roaster's equipment and would like my input and or involvement.

Keep an eye on the developments and the content on their great site. I will be doing a review of their new online course in about 3 weeks, and will be sharing some opinions here and they're requesting some feedback as well.

You can't really start off a week in any better way!

Tom,

This writeup is thrilling. Something like this you've offered time and again in the past. But such succulent descriptions with no opportunity to purchase the bags of coffee you showed! If you see where in NA the Boot roast can be bought, please let us know.

Flint

Flint, buddy, friend,

It's right there in the article. Look for the "Here's how". It's a hyper link.

Isn't that a different roaster - also not available when I -immediately - checked the link.

I looked too - all I found was this:

I couldn't find any source directly from Boot, nor did I get the impression of him wanting to go that route.

His crop is harvested 3 times a year and might total 1000 kilos in all. And like I said, Asia wants all of it. So there's going to be some effort involved in sourcing it.

When I shared that link last night, it stated in bold red typeface that the next roasting was scheduled for a monday. Perhaps they already pre-sold out of that.

That's okay. The magical descriptions will suffice for me, but I was tempted by the glitterring descriptions and congenial people doing the roasting. It's been a long time since I pulled the trigger for gesha and I can continue to enjoy less fantastic but still delicious offerings for the domestic market.

(Great mulicorn, Eric)