Food Column: How I Became a Coffee Lover
A non-coffee drinker visits a coffee farm in Panama and leaves a convert.
“Taste this,” Richard Lipner said as he pinched a fruit from a coffee plant on his farm and handed it to me. Following his lead, I sucked the pulp and spit out the husk and beans. The juice from the coffee cherry surprised me with its sweet, almost floral, flavor. But the experience differed from that of eating, say, pomegranate arils or muscadines because I could taste a smooth cup of Arabica waiting to be brewed. And I wasn’t even a coffee drinker. My family and I arrived at Finca Dos Jefes, an organic coffee farm located in the El Salto region in Boquete, Panama, on a cool morning at the start of harvest season. Coffee plants, heavy with cherries from green to blood red, formed a patchwork across the sloped land. Brightly colored …
