Panama Elida Estate Catuai Natural ASD

This is a special Anaerobic Slow Dry (ASD) process of Elida's well known Catuai Natural. Supply is very limited. We purchase this coffee as Direct Trade, right from the producer and it arrives to our warehouse in vacuum packed boxes. The ASD process takes select coffee cherries, then places them into an airtight environment where they macerate in their own juices, intensifying native fruit flavors. The coffee is then dried over a considerably extended period of time adding further intensity and maturation. Elida is at the experimental forefront of coffee excellence in Panama and when we offered this coffee for the first time in 2019, we believe it was the first offering from the farm. Our relationship with the Lamastus family, owners and producers of Elida Estate, have spanned many years and we consider them among our friends.

Elida Estate has been run by the Lamastus family for four generations, starting in 1918 when the founder of the farm, Robert Lamastus, bought property along the Baru Volcano. There are three farms in the Lamastus family: Elida Estate, El Burro Estate, and Luito Geisha Estate. With elevations between 5500 and 8200 feet above sea level, Elida is the highest coffee farm in Panama, although coffee is only grown between 5600 and 6200 feet. A large part of the farm is a dedicated ecological reserve area in Volcan Baru National Park, a world heritage site.  Fun fact:  Panama is one of the few places on earth that is carbon negative meaning they remove more carbon than they produce and emit.  In other words, environmentally, they help improve the earth.

Elida coffees have broken auction records repeatedly, fetching ever higher prices from buyers all over the world.  Auctioned coffee is usually confined to Geisha, sometimes in very tiny, highly specialized lots.  Most recently, at the 2022 Elida private auction, a coffee lot of only 7 pounds of green coffee sold for the stratopheric price of $6,034 per pound!  The average price of all lots in the auction was $341 per pound.  Their auction record streak began and  made headlines about five years ago at the Best of Panama competition, where two of their coffee lots broke world records for the highest prices paid for coffee (per pound). Their Geisha Green Tip Washed sold for $661.00/lb at auction, and their Geisha Green Tip Natural sold for a whopping $803.00/lb.  The following year they won first and second place in the competition for a second time, a once in a lifetime feat, and the top Geisha Natural sold for $1029 a pound.  Suffice to say their reputation is stellar.  While the winning Geisha coffees and private auction garner the headlines, they produce a good deal of affordable, down to earth coffee for the rest of us, much of it incorporating the same know and attention to detail.  Such is the case with this Catuai Natural ASD.

Wilford Lamastus, owner of Elida in 2015

This lot is 100% Catuai, a varietal developed in the mid-twentieth century. Catuai is a cross between the Mondo Novo and Caturra varietals, both of which were created by selective cross-breeding programs. Mondo Novo was the result of combining Bourbon and Typica varietals, and Caturra is a combination of two Red Bourbon mutations. ASD (Anaerobic Slow Dry) is a relative newcomer to the coffee processing game; at Elida Estate the coffee is picked from the trees and immediately transfered to an airtight container. The coffee sits for 5 days undisturbed, before the bag is opened and the coffee sorted and picked over. Unlike traditional washed and natural processes, ASD coffee has an elongated drying time in an unusual location. Wilford Lamastus sends most of his coffee down to the lower altitudes on his farm to dry, usually for 10-20 days, but this lot is dried up in the higher reaches of the farm for over forty days, until it reaches the correct moisture content. This unique processing system creates coffees with previously unseen coffee cherry flavors and intensity.

Wilford Lamastus describes the Anaerobic Slow Dry "ASD" process

• Province: Chiriqui
• District: Boquete
• Township: Los Naranjos
• Altitude: 5600-6200 feet above sea level
• Coffee variety: Catuai
• Processing: Natural ASD
• Farm: Elida Estate

Handmade wooden trays used for drying natural and honey coffees

Bob, Wilford Lamastus (owner of Elida), Barry (taken 2007)