I had a bit of a rude surprise last night when I went to one of my favorite roasters to procure more Panama to lay in a bit of supplies in light of the recent BBotE order extravaganza. I was informed that they were out of Panama, and several other Central American varieties I’ve been tinkering with, “for the foreseeable future”. This is a bit heartbreaking as I am very fond of light roasts but it’s so hard to find them with good, consistent flavor and their Panama was my winner. So, back to the drawing board hunting for good new light roasts.
Where it gets a bit more worrisome is that I started putting two and two together about the fact that I’ve told of Central American supply problems from several roasters over the last few months with no good explanation. So I started poking around a bit and discovered that this appears to be a rather low coffee yield La Nina year down there.
The current orders for Panama will be fulfilled with the stock I have on hand but as of last night I yanked it off the website. Where this will get a little tricky in the future is with the BBotE sampler 10 pack. I would like to fill the void Panama has left in our hearts with another light roast and/or a representative from the Americas but I don’t have one of those ready to go yet. Malabar is a contender for a light roast, but for the time being I will be substituting the rather tasty Colombia from last week’s experimentation which has proven itself to be replicable.