altitude
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altitude
1750
A deep dive into the Panamanian farm that rewrote the rules of specialty coffee, and the Cañas Verdes SL-34 lot we are proud to roast at Glass.
On the slopes of Barú
In the western highlands of Panama, the road to Cañas Verdes climbs towards Volcán Barú and then seems to run out of nerve. The air drops in temperature, clouds move in from both oceans, and coffee trees give way to stretches of forest that have been left deliberately untouched. Somewhere above 1,700 metres, on one of these slopes, a block of SL-34 was harvested on 13 February 2025, its cherries moving straight from the pickers’ baskets to raised beds and, eventually, a long, slow drying room.
That block is the origin of our first lot from Hacienda La Esmeralda: Cañas Verdes SL-34 5 BANC Natural. For us at Glass, it represents more than a product launch. It is a way of connecting a single cup on our bar to a farm that has shaped how specialty coffee understands variety, terroir and price.
Hacienda La Esmeralda matters because it helped put Panama and the Geisha variety on the global map. When the Peterson family separated high-altitude Geisha lots for the 2004 Best of Panama competition and watched cuppers lose their composure at the table, they did not just win a trophy. They changed what roasters, baristas and drinkers believed coffee could taste like, and what they believed it could be worth. Two decades later, in 2025, Esmeralda took a historic “triple crown” at Best of Panama, winning first place in Geisha Washed, Geisha Natural and the Varietal category with record scores that pushed the upper limit of cupping sheets close to its ceiling.
Our SL-34 lot comes from the same system that produced those competition coffees. This profile is our attempt to tell that story in full: how a cattle property became a reference point for “uber-premium” coffee, where Geisha actually came from, why Cañas Verdes is such interesting ground for SL-34, and how all of that links back to what you taste in your cup at Glass.
From cattle pasture to coffee benchmark
The land that is now Hacienda La Esmeralda was assembled as a single estate in 1940 by a Swede, Hans Elliot, who brought together several hundred hectares in what are today the Palmira and Cañas Verdes farms.
In 1967, Rudolph A. Peterson, a Swedish American banker and former president of Bank of America, bought the estate as a retirement project. At that time the land was mostly pasture for beef cattle, with only scattered patches of coffee. By 1975 the family had moved fully into dairy, and for a while that looked like the farm’s long-term identity.
Coffee re-enters the picture in the mid-1980s, when the Petersons began converting parts of the estate back to coffee in response to renewed interest in the Boquete region’s potential. Coffee had been grown in and around the area since at least 1890, so there was already a deep local knowledge base to draw on. The family expanded their coffee plantings at Palmira in 1988 and, in 1997, bought a new high-altitude property on the slopes of Barú that would become the Jaramillo farm. The bet was simple: higher altitude might mean livelier, more nuanced coffees.
Nobody at that point expected Jaramillo to become the site of one of specialty coffee’s most famous discoveries.
The rediscovery of Geisha
The Geisha story starts long before Panama. In 1936, Captain Richard Whalley, a British colonial officer in what is now south-western Ethiopia, was tasked with collecting coffee seeds from around Gesha (often written Geisha) Mountain. Those seeds travelled through research stations in East Africa and then to CATIE in Costa Rica, where they were catalogued as one accession among many, noted for their resistance to a fungal disease called “ojo de gallo” rather than for any extraordinary flavour.
From CATIE, small batches were distributed around Central America. Some eventually reached Panama, where Geisha was planted alongside other varieties on farms including Jaramillo. For years it was simply one more tree in a mixed field, valued more for agronomic traits than cup profile.
The breakthrough came just before the 2004 Best of Panama competition. Preparing for the event, the Petersons decided to separate harvests not only by process, but by farm section and variety. This was new territory. One of the resulting lots was 100 percent Geisha from a high-elevation block on Jaramillo, above approximately 1,650 metres. When it reached the cupping table, the reaction was immediate. Judges talked about jasmine, bergamot, citrus and stone fruit with a clarity and intensity that felt closer to a top Ethiopian coffee than to the Central American profiles they knew.
Esmeralda’s Geisha won the 2004 competition and sold at auction for around 21 dollars per pound, roughly four times the previous record. This was the moment that reset expectations. It showed that a single variety, grown in a particular microclimate and kept meticulously separate, could express a flavour profile so distinct that the market would accept a radically higher price.
In the years that followed, Esmeralda repeated and extended that success. Their Cañas Verdes Geisha Natural set a world record price of 601 dollars per pound at the 2017 Best of Panama auction. By 2025, the farm was again at the centre of global headlines, taking the triple crown with scores of 98 points for Geisha Washed, 97 for Geisha Natural and just under 93 for their Laurina varietal in the Varietals category, while the top washed Geisha later sold for around 30,000 dollars per kilogram at auction.
These numbers can feel abstract, but they are important. They show how Esmeralda helped introduce the idea of ultra high scoring, ultra high value coffee as its own category, and how auctions could become engines for both price discovery and storytelling in specialty coffee.
Geisha in context, and where SL-34 fits
Geisha’s appeal is not mystical. In practical terms, it is a genetically distinct Arabica variety with long, elegant leaves and relatively sparse branching, that tends to produce fewer cherries per tree than workhorse varieties but adds value through aromatics and structure. At high altitudes in Boquete, it expresses perfumed florals (jasmine, rose, elderflower), citrus and stone fruits, and an almost tea-like texture that can feel weightless and dense at the same time.
Esmeralda’s contribution was to create the conditions for those traits to be seen clearly: the right elevation, careful selection of individual trees, rigorous lot separation, and a processing infrastructure built around precision rather than volume.
Our lot, however, is not Geisha. It is SL-34, a variety with roots in Kenya rather than Ethiopia. SL-34 was selected by Scott Agricultural Laboratories in the late 1930s from a single tree labelled “French Mission” on an estate near Nairobi. It belongs to the broader Bourbon–Typica genetic group and is adapted to high-altitude areas with good rainfall. It is known among roasters for its high cup potential: vivid acidity, layered fruit and a sweetness that often skews towards berries and stone fruit.
To see SL-34 grown at Cañas Verdes is interesting for two reasons.
First, it is a deliberate counterpoint to Geisha. Where Geisha in Panama is all about florals, citrus lift and a light, almost aerial structure, SL-34 tends to offer a slightly broader, more textural cup, with deeper fruit tones and a more classic coffee “body”. Second, in the hands of a producer like Esmeralda, SL-34 becomes a way of exploring the same terroir with a different lens. It asks the question: what does this land taste like when the variety is not carrying all of the hype by itself?
In our Cañas Verdes SL-34 5 BANC Natural, the answer is a cup that keeps Esmeralda’s clarity and length but moves the flavour dial towards cherry, jasmine and honey, with a silky, tea-like line and a long, clean finish. It is recognisably from the same school as their competition lots, but with its own character and a slightly more relaxed, drinkable posture.
Terroir and the layout of the farms
Hacienda La Esmeralda today is not a single farm but a small ecosystem of properties spread around Boquete: Palmira, Cañas Verdes, Jaramillo and El Velo. Each has its own elevation range, microclimate and role in the overall system.
Jaramillo is the high, rugged farm where Geisha was rediscovered. Its slopes reach well above 1,700 metres, shaded by old trees that have stood for decades. Cool temperatures, frequent mist and steep gradients slow the ripening of cherries, pushing sugars and organic acids to build gradually. Esmeralda describes it as the place where Geisha’s bright, floral aromatics express themselves most intensely, and many of their highest scoring Geisha microlots still come from small pockets on Jaramillo.
Cañas Verdes, the origin of our SL-34 lot, is a little different. It lies on the western side of Barú and has a defined dry season of three to four months from roughly December to February, yet the air remains cool even at midday. Half of the farm is part of the original Peterson holdings from 1967, which were once used for beef and then dairy cattle. After the Geisha rediscovery, the family started acquiring neighbouring plots, stitching together a larger coffee landscape on these hillsides and planting more Geisha as well as other varieties. Many of Esmeralda’s award-winning Geisha lots, including record-breaking Cañas Verdes naturals, come from here.
El Velo is the newest farm, purchased in 2012. It covers around 50 hectares planted from about 1,650 to 1,900 metres above sea level, with a large nature reserve rising up to 2,900 metres. The planted area includes Geisha and Catuai, as well as smaller plots of varieties like Laurina, Pacamara and SL-34, plus more than 400 other accessions used in a long-term research project. El Velo is where Esmeralda tests the next generation of varieties and processing ideas.
Across these farms, the Petersons keep large areas under conservation: roughly 240 hectares of forest at Cañas Verdes, 68 hectares at Jaramillo and 157 hectares at El Velo, with coffee cultivated on smaller portions of each property. Shade is provided by native fruiting trees which double as habitat for birds, including the resplendent quetzal in El Velo’s reserve.
In sensory terms, this terroir translates into coffees that combine high acidity and aromatic intensity with a calm, precise structure. Cool nights and warm days drive a strong diurnal range that preserves malic and citrus acids while encouraging sugar development. Mist and forest canopy buffer heat and ultraviolet stress, leading to slower cherry maturation. Volcanic soils, enriched with composted parchment and husk from the mill, give the cups a grounded sweetness that shows up as honey, ripe fruit and a gentle, persistent finish rather than a sharp peak of flavour.
How Esmeralda changed specialty coffee
Esmeralda’s influence can be felt across several layers of specialty coffee.
1. Variety separation and the micro-lot mindset
By separating Geisha from other varieties and keeping blocks of the farm distinct in processing, the Petersons showed how much cup quality and profile can change over a few hundred metres of slope. This helped normalise the idea of micro-lots: coffees identified by farm section, variety and process rather than just region or estate. Today, lot codes like “Cañas Verdes SL-34 5 BANC” are part of the everyday language of specialty coffee, but that level of granularity only became the norm after producers like Esmeralda proved that buyers would respond to them.
2. Auctions and the rise of “luxury coffee”
The 2004 Best of Panama auction and subsequent Esmeralda auctions paved the way for the current era of high-stakes green coffee sales. From 21 dollars per pound in 2004 to 601 dollars per pound in 2017 and then record-breaking per-kilogram prices in 2025, the curve of Esmeralda’s auction results mirrors the industry’s shift from treating coffee purely as a commodity to treating very small slices of it as luxury goods.
On the positive side, this has shown that producers can capture significantly more value for exceptional quality, justifying investments in farm infrastructure, labour and environmental stewardship. It has also created a halo effect: as the reputation of Panama Geisha grew, more buyers started exploring the country’s broader range of coffees.
The other side of the argument is more complicated. Ultra high prices concentrating in a handful of lots raise questions about inequality in the supply chain. They can skew expectations for farmers who will never have access to the same conditions, and they risk turning certain coffees into trophies rather than drinks. There is also a danger that the industry’s attention gets locked onto a small set of producers and varieties, while everyday coffees that sustain most livelihoods remain underpaid.
Our view at Glass is that both realities exist at once. Esmeralda’s success has expanded what is possible, but it also highlights how important it is to make transparent where that extra value goes and to keep investing in quality and fairness outside the competition spotlight.
3. Flavour language and consumer expectations
Esmeralda’s Geishas helped expand the flavour vocabulary used in coffee. Notes like jasmine, bergamot, white peach or mandarin were always present in some coffees, but the clarity with which they appeared in high-altitude Geisha lots pushed cuppers and drinkers to pay more attention to high-tone aromatics and delicate structures. That shift has influenced how we taste and describe coffees from Ethiopia, Colombia and beyond.
Land, people and long-term thinking
Hacienda La Esmeralda’s sustainability work is not just a paragraph on a bag. It is embedded in how the farms are run.
On the environmental side, the farm refuses to use insecticides or herbicides, relying instead on manual control of weeds and careful timing of fungicide applications to avoid bird nesting and flowering seasons. Coffee pulp and dry milling by-products are composted and returned to the fields, closing nutrient loops. Fermentation water is recycled multiple times and then diverted into grazing fields, where plants help detoxify and absorb it. The estate runs several small hydroelectric plants to power the mill, reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
The decision to keep large areas of each farm under conservation, mentioned earlier, is part of the same logic. By protecting headwaters, forest corridors and biodiversity, Esmeralda is effectively investing in its own future ability to grow coffee at these altitudes.
On the social side, the farm’s sustainability page outlines a fairly robust set of practices. Permanent staff receive competitive wages, generous vacation time and scholarships for their children from primary school through university. Seasonal harvesters are paid well above regional averages and receive an additional end-of-harvest payment to bridge the gap to the next season. The farm provides housing, meals and childcare during harvest, and offers financial support for medical expenses when needed.
Beyond the farm, the Patricia Price Peterson Foundation, founded in 1964, funds scholarships and community projects across Central America, including the Boquete Library Foundation and its public park.
None of this means Esmeralda is perfect or that every question about coffee labour is solved here. It does mean that when we talk about paying more for coffee from this farm, there are concrete mechanisms through which that money can translate into better conditions for people and land.
For us at Glass, that alignment matters. Our work in London is built around transparency and traceability. Knowing that a partner farm is investing in similar principles at origin makes it easier to tell the whole story honestly: not just the romantic parts, but the price, the risks and the trade-offs.
How this lot reached Glass
Our connection to this SL-34 started with a friend of the roastery. During the 2025 Esmeralda release, Chris Ma from Feri was cupping at Calderas Coffees while Carlo was away. Among the table of samples, a particular natural SL-34 from Cañas Verdes stood out for its structure and florality. Chris flagged it immediately. Jaime at Calderas, whose sourcing has repeatedly opened doors for us, confirmed it was a beautiful lot that had scored 91 points.
On that basis, we made a rare blind purchase. We knew the pedigree of the producer. We trusted Jaime. And we liked the idea of starting our Esmeralda relationship not with a Geisha micro-lot but with a coffee that carries the same discipline in a slightly more understated form.
As a roaster, we dream of working with the best farmers on earth, but we are very careful not to chase famous names purely for their reputation. Philosophically, that is how we wanted to approach Esmeralda. We were not interested in buying the label or importing something so rare and expensive that it becomes a museum piece. We waited until we could secure a lot that
- sits in the competition tier yet can still be enjoyed as a daily filter,
- reflects a serious farm price without becoming unreachable, and
- adds something genuinely distinct to our line-up in terms of variety and processing.
Cañas Verdes SL-34 5 BANC Natural is the first Esmeralda lot that truly hits that balance for us.
Why Hacienda La Esmeralda still matters
Two decades on from that 2004 Best of Panama shockwave, Hacienda La Esmeralda remains not just a reference point but an active benchmark. The farm helped demonstrate that variety and microclimate, treated with care and separated properly, can redefine what coffee is and what it is worth. It pushed auctions, scores and prices into new territory, and made more people pay attention to how coffees are grown, processed and paid for. In 2025 it underlined that role again, taking the Best of Panama “triple crown” and setting a new world record price for coffee with its 98-point Geisha Washed, while its Geisha Natural also surpassed the previous record.
At the same time, the world around Esmeralda has become more crowded at the top. Other farms in Panama and beyond have reached similar heights, and for a few years Esmeralda no longer held the price record. New varieties and processes are emerging in places from Huila to Yunnan, and the landscape of top-level coffee is more diverse now. That is a healthy development. It means Esmeralda is part of a wider ecosystem of excellence rather than a lone outlier.
In that context, Esmeralda’s role is less about being the only benchmark and more about being one of several anchors for where specialty coffee can go when quality, experimentation and long-term investment in land and people all line up. Its farms show what decades of focused work can achieve. Its auction history reminds us both of the opportunities and the tensions in treating coffee as a luxury good.
For us at Glass, roasting this Cañas Verdes SL-34 is a way to connect our bar in London to that wider story. When you drink this coffee, you are tasting a piece of coffee history: a Kenyan variety grown on a Panamanian farm best known for an Ethiopian cultivar, processed in one of the most advanced drying facilities in the industry, and carried through a supply chain that tries to be transparent at every step.
More importantly, you are participating in a model where quality is rewarded, labour is made visible and value is shared more deliberately. That is the direction we hope specialty coffee continues to move in, and we are proud that this particular lot from Hacienda La Esmeralda is part of that journey.