New partnership: Kiva Estate
The Kiva Estate team is exceptional in many ways. The native Panamanians are not coffee farmers by tradition. They have studied and worked in other jobs, some of them in large corporations and in international business, in IT, marketing and management. What they have in common is their friendship, which they have maintained for over 30 years.
It all started with a great deal of entrepreneurial spirit and a fascination for coffee. Two of the team already had a pasture and some cattle. One day, when they were sitting together with their friends, the idea of starting to grow coffee was born. All over the world, young people are currently leaving coffee production. The friends from Kiva Estate decided to swim against the tide. Their vision: to produce Panama’s best Fine Robusta coffee!
They took a whole year to acquire the necessary knowledge in South and Central America. In Panama, they visited the country’s best fincas. In Colombia, they went to an important coffee fair and made friends with an inventor who produces industrial technology for the manufacture of microlots. They also made friends with industrialists in their northern neighbor Costa Rica. The difficulty was the same everywhere: nobody could do anything with Canephora or Robusta. All the machines were designed for pure arabica production, as the cultivation of canephora was (and still is!) prohibited in both Costa Rica and Colombia.
But their perseverance paid off. The Kiva team won Olmedo for their project, a Nicaraguan with the necessary amount of enthusiasm and a young life full of experience in coffee cultivation. He would supervise the work on the newly established finca. They bought seeds from Brazil, the distinguished variety BRS2314 promised high cupping scores and resistance to coffee rust.
A small hill near Penonomé in the state of Coclé was chosen as the location for the project. Some believe that the privateer Captain Morgan hid some of the gold treasure he stole from the Spaniards in Panama City here in the mountains. It was never found. The first finca was set up and the plants planted. Kiva Estate was born.
Piece by piece, they assembled their post-harvest fleet on a small plot of land near “Finca 1”, with machines from Brazil, Colombia and Costa Rica. Neighboring farmers joked incredulously about the strange coffee farmers from the city who wanted to produce the supposedly inferior Robusta coffee. But nothing could stop Kiva Estate. The ball was rolling.
Even the first harvest was promising. With their great talent for improvement and networking, the Kiva Estate team sought contact with Panamanian roasters, baristas and internationals. The first bang came at WoC Athens, where Kiva Estate’s Fine Robusta was widely acclaimed by European roasters and the CQI. Even though we missed each other in Athens, we got in touch shortly afterwards through our Canephorum initiative via Instagram. At the same time, coffee also found more and more fans in Panama City. At the Mentiritas Blancas roastery, the Fine Robusta from Kiva Estate found its permanent place in the freezer, alongside fine Geshas, Eugenoides and other 90+ coffees. The roaster Petros Korakianitis, later Panamanian Barista Champion 2024, became another fan of Kiva’s Fine Robusta.
In February 2024, Lukas had the opportunity to visit Kiva Estate, which he was able to combine with a visit to his Colombian family. Together, the Kiva Estate team and Lukas spent a few days in Panama City and Coclé. The purchase contract was signed. The foundation stone for our latest original partnership was laid.
We are already looking forward to the next harvest season and to shaping the Fine Robusta movement together. From now on with like-minded people in Panama!
