Las Brujas / Ricardo Koyner / Victoria Koyner

At Panama’s Las Brujas farm, part of Kotowa Coffee’s highland plots, ripe cherries were hand-picked and whisked to the mill, where they rested overnight in white sacks, their sweet promise quietly ripening.​

There, honey processing left a golden mucilage cloak on the beans, which were then spread in a medium 10 cm layer on outdoor African beds under the sun’s watchful eye. Turned three times a day for five days, they basked by day and retreated to the greenhouse at night, the sticky veil slowly yielding to fruity depth.​

Gathered from the beds, the beans slipped into the static dryer’s gentle 35°C embrace for two days, steady warmth drawing out the last whispers of moisture.​

Machine drying finished their journey, polishing them to perfection before storage in white sacks within the mill’s warehouses—ready to enchant cups far away