Beneficio

The property is located in the Cochea region, Dolega District on the main road between Boquete and David, the region´s capital. It´s about 20 Km from Boquete and with an altitude of 400 m over sea level and the Cochea river runs parallel to the installations.

The beneficio is named “Beneficio Don Pedro” in honor of Don Pedro Bradley, first owner of the property and a good friend of Don Vidal Suarez. Don Pedro was of Irish origin and was the first person to build and install a Hydropower plant in Panama, according to historians. All the channels and structures still remain intact as proof of the vision and intelligence of Don Pedro.

Once the Beneficio was built, the first coffee harvest processed was in 1989-90. It was designed originally to handle a 5000 quintal volume. This capacity was upgraded as the production grew bigger and the first exports were bought by the CECA SA company, member of the Neumann Group today. Around 1996 the volume of coffee managed was bigger and new buyers were found, becoming suppliers of Illy Café, Starbucks and other USA brokers. From that point on we focused more on the specialty market that recognized the value of the coffee, and as of today we continue this activities strongly, penetrating more demanding markets like Japan.

In the last 3 years, Baru Indian High has been working in penetrating the micro-lot market, taking advantage of the very diverse flavors and aromas that each farm produces. Today, we have a cup profile for each farm, but in some circumstances we can fine-tune it for each lot, allowing us to cater to very special tastes for some clients in the West Coast of the United States and Canada.

The growth in the production volume and costs and the new challenges introduced by the new environmental laws force us to improve continuously the drying facilities, equipment, and storage areas while maintaining the same quality of the coffee. We also have a tasting laboratory to control the quality of the product, enabled with real-time video and audio conferencing.

Coffee Processing

Everyday the green coffee is harvested from the farms with utmost care, to guarantee that the cup identity is not damaged. The staff at the beneficio have been trained for years to guarantee that each step in the process is followed accordingly to ensure the quality control.

We acquired last generation equipment for wet beneficio from the brazilian firm PINHALENSE, S/A to comply with the environmental laws and reduce the production costs. This equipment uses very little water and this factor allows us to reach faster the decomposition of the coffee pulp, which is recycled as fertilizer for the seeding fields or farms.

This method also allows us to select the green bean faster and more accurate, again, to maintain the cup quality.

Even though we have equipment to speed up the fermentation as an alternative, we prefer the natural fermentation process. The local conditions of the area where the Beneficio stands are ideal for this process. The temperature is between 18ºC and 27ºC with a relative humidity between 40-60% during summer. Precipitations between May and November fall between 2500 – 3000mm per year. During the January to March timeframe, they are almost no-existent.

All the coffee that is processed with water is pre-dried or dried naturally by the sun on the drying areas. If the temperature is high, by 2pm we collect all the coffee and is covered by 6pm. The final dry is always done on the drying machines, to maintain homogeneity. Their top temperature never exceeds 50ºC.

Once the drying process is finished, the coffee is stored in propylene bags (or Grain Pro bags) keeping a record of the entry date, quantity per quality range to let it rest. This process should not take less than 30 days, but not more than 45 either. During this stage, the coffee reaches it’s best aroma. Once the structural investment in our facilities is complete, we will be able to control the temperature and humidity, allowing us to extend the rest period without risking the quality.

The quality control continues to the final step of exporting the coffee from our facility.