OpenRoad Driver Volume 15 Issue 1 | Page 70

70 » OpenRoad Driver EXTRAS Coffee, Cloud Forests, Islands PANAM A Words by Lauren Kramer Photos courtesy of Autoridad de turismo de Panamá » If you want the champagne of coffee, the world’s most expensive, there’s just one place to go: Boquete, a small town on the slopes of the Barú Volcano in Panama’s Chiriquí province. Boquete’s Geisha coffee, which sells for a whopping $600 per pound, is coveted by Asia’s high society for its jasmine, flowery taste and relative unavailability. Panama is a small, modest player in the coffee industry, but what it does produce consistently wins the top awards in the world’s coffee competitions.