Best of Panama online auction takes place 19 to 20 July

The Specialty Coffee Association of Panama (SCAP) will host the Best of Panama (BOP) eAuction from 19 to 20 July. Bidders from around the world will go live online tonight at midnight (British Summer Time) to bid on their preferred coffee. According to SCAP, there are a total of 49 lots of offer from different growers, including Traditional Washed, Honey, Natural, Exotic Washed, as well as Natural coffees. “Whilst the yield of the harvest for low this year, the quality of the coffee from our crops was outstanding,” SCAP said in a statement. You can watch the online auction here. BOP is a blind coffee tasting competition organised and hosted by Panamanian non-profit coffee growers and processors association, SCAP, where each competing farm submits their best coffee produce. In May 2018, Wilford Lamastus of Elida Estate did what no other producer has achieved in the 22 years of the BOP, winning both the Washed and Natural Geisha categories in the 2018 competition in Boquete, Chiriqui in Panama. To hear about Lamastus' win, click here.  In 2016, Lamastus broke the Best of Panama record in the Geisha Washed category, and in this year’s event, he broke his own record. Lamastus submitted four Geisha variety coffees and placed first in the Washed Geisha category with 94.66 points for a Elida Geisha Washed (EGW), first in the Geisha Natural category with 93.34 points, and 12th with his El Burro Geisha Washed on 90.87 in the Geisha Washed category. Several judges scored his winning coffee higher than 96 points and four judges scored it higher than 97 points. Lamastus says it was the highest score some of the judges had ever given to a coffee in their life. Since 1996, the Best of Panama represents the opportunity for local estates to promote the quality of their harvests. This competition is overseen and judged by national and international experts in the specialty coffee industry. For coffee growers, the Best of Panama continues to raise the bar for the quality Panamanian producers strive to achieve. The auction will take place in the following time zones: 19 July
• Los Angeles – 16:00 PM
• Panama – 18:00 PM
• New York – 19:00 PM 20 July
• London – 00:00 AM
• Taipei – 07:00 AM
• Shanghai 07:00 AM
• Tokyo – 08:00 AM
• Seoul – 08:00 AM
• Sydney – 09:00 AM To register and for more information, visit auction.bestofpanama.org