Description
Damarli Estate is a specialty coffee plantation hidden in the mountains of Boquete, Panama. All the coffee at Damarli Estate are hand picked ripe coffee cherries, which are carefully hand processed and evaluated by the owners David Pech and Keith Pech to create exquisite and outstanding coffees. Damarli Estate offers its clients worldwide a wide selection of different varietals through its Varietal Collection and additional coffees through its Tradicional Coffee Label. Furthermore, to support its vision toward sustainable production, Damarli Estate built a completely solar powered coffee laboratory, kitchen, private suites and sunrise veranda. Both Keith and David hope to use the estate to connect with baristas, roasters and coffee enthusiasts to enjoy the natural beauty of the farm, to share outstanding coffees and to strengthen the specialty coffee community.
History
Damarli Estate was founded in 1995 when David Pech purchased the farm. It was named Damarli after the initial investors: DA – for David, MA – for Manfred (David’s father), R – for Ruth (David’s mother) and LI – for Lia (David’s wife). Initially Lia’s family managed the estate, because the Ruiz family had four generations of experience in growing coffee in Boquete, and because David and Lia lived in the United States. However, the coffee from the estate was never sold under Damarli Estate, but rather was put into one of the Ruiz export coffee blends.
In 2014 Keith Pech, David’s son, who had been extensively involved with specialty coffee movement since he was a child, finished his undergraduate degree in the United States. Keith had studied both International Business and Sustainability and he decided he wanted to develop the coffee from Damarli Estate into an internationally recognized specialty coffee producer. Keith moved to Boquete in the fall of 2014 and began to completely run the operations at Damarli Estate. This move to continue the producing legacy would make him a fifth generation producer from the Ruiz family.
Keith first began by understanding the farm and the different areas and varieties found on the farm. On the farm there are many different varieties: Typica, Bourbon, Geisha, Pacamara, Caturra and Catuai. Keith started to attend different coffee shows and interacting with the different producers in Panama to learn as much as he could. After two years, Keith is now a certified Arabica Q Grader; Damarli Estate exports coffees to the United States, to Taiwan and to Europe; And David completed the solar powered coffee laboratory, kitchen, private suites and sunrise veranda.