My 100th Blog Post – A Milestone!

As a new blogger, I’ve had lots of fun writing about what’s important to me, living and growing in Boquete, Panama. Eleven thousand, eight hundred fifty (11,850) visitors have opened my site. It’s really astounding!

Thanks to all of you for peeking at our lives here in Boquete, it’s an amazing place in which to live. The rainbows are spectacular, the air is clean, and coffee grown here, is the best in the world!

In a nutshell, the first 100 posts were mostly about the people I know and love, the folks I see every day, and the neighbors who give so much to our community. There have also been fellow food bloggers and readers from around the world whom I call friends, although I’ve never met them face-to-face. I’ve mentioned lots of famous people who have impacted my life in some way or another. The nearly 100 people named in my blogs are named again below, and I really appreciate the contribution each person has made to my life since moving to Boquete, nearly 8 years ago.

Would you like to guess the most popular article of the 100 blogs I have written? How about guessing the average amount of time each visitor spends on the site at each visit? The answers are given below.

Thanks so much to the real stars of the past 100 blogs! By name, they are: Lauretta Bonfiglio, Sharon James, Juan Linares, Renny Kranich, David Kent, Jon Day, Kurt & Norman, Erik Carrera, Charlie Collins, Alison Holst, Anne Necker, Maritrini, Joyce and Nick Newton, Tom and Caroline Bot, Richard Detrich, Tammyjo Eckhart, Danilo, Jerry Wager, Elvin, Dorothy Lamour, Jorge Ortega, Liz Lees, James Cagny, and Tova Speter.

Thanks to Nelson, Calixto, Belisario Torres, Kelly Herring, Jim and Cindy Eickhoff, Julia Quiroz, Cesar, Doris Day, Idu, Papa Ricco, Giovanni, Carrie and Jonathan, Violet, Patricia Martinelli, Carlos Williams, Amy Adams, Greg Henry, Gobbles, Clyde and Phyllis Stevens, Ruby McKenzie, Eddie Cantor, Marian and Ethan Becker, Hershel and Mikey, Grandma Gates, Zorida, Lee Zelter, Axel Schob, Kirsten Peck, Judy Garland, Gale Cellucci, Drick Perry, and Anayansi Menendez.

I so much appreciate David Necker, Eric and Jane, Lori Lynn, Dave and Erin Ross, Groucho Marx, Rachel White, Martine Heyer, Richard Meyer, Mickey and Squirt James, Frederic Chopin, Mario Batali, Edgar Castillo, Vasco Numez Balboa, Irma Rombauer, Julia Child, Craig Claibourne, Barbra Streisand, Michelangelo, Diego Rivera, Bill Streit, Bing Crosby, Emeril Lagasse and Steven R. Covey.

You can still guess the top blogs, these photos will give you a hint. The top, broad category is “Boquete Living”, including blogs about daily living in the Highlands of Panama.

The #1 blog in my first 100 articles, is “My Fiestaware Collection”, written October 8, 2009. The blog you visited almost as many times, at #2, is “Panama’s Coffee Cup – Cafe Duran”, dated January 8. The #3 blog is “Hollywood’s Golden Age of Dining”, written January 3.

At each visit, the viewer stays on boquetegourmet.com site an average of 2 minutes, 37 seconds, quite an amazingly long period of time, especially when there are millions of other sites to visit.

I’m so very grateful to all of you for your time these past several months, and I hope to make my second hundred articles even more interesting and fun! If you’d like to suggest a particular subject, please let me know. Thanks again for your support!

Hugs,
Cora

Panama’s Coffee Cup – Cafe Duran

During the next several months, I’ll be sharing with you some of the finest coffee grown anywhere in the world, all produced in Boquete, the coffee capital of Panama. Today is the opening day of the International Flower and Coffee Fair in Boquete and the perfect time to begin a series on the 40 locally grown coffees that are showcased at the fair.

Boquete is “coffee heaven” for the true connoisseur of fine coffee and I’m lucky enough to be here to share them with you from an “up close and personal” perspective.

Cafe Duran has been a leader in growing Boquete coffee for 5 generations, bringing 100 years of experience of building their company to one of the largest in Panama. Duran employs over 300 full-time workers and supports more than 500 native families of the Ngobe-Bugle tribe. They purchase freshly-picked coffee beans from over 3,000 families of small-scale growers who bring their coffee to collection centers in and near the Boquete area.

These bright yellow and black trucks are very recognizable all over Panama and boast their 100 year history of coffee production. These trucks are distributing Cafe Duran coffee from the processing plant in Panama City to countries all over the world.

A new concept to Panama has been the “Coffee Store” and Duran is one of the first to open such a store in Boquete, located near the bridge just across from the fairgrounds. If you are in Boquete, you might want to stop by Duran’s new coffee shop and try a freshly brewed cup of one of the most traditional coffees grown in Boquete.

My impression of Cafe Duran has always been of how dark and aromatic this traditional Cafe Puro is when the bag is first opened. I love a dark roasted, rich and full-bodied coffee and Cafe Duran is a good example of this type of coffee. When hot water hits Duran coffee, the aroma fills my kitchen and wafts to the other end of my house, signaling David that it’s time to enjoy some really fine Boquete coffee.

This is a memorable cup of coffee, one that the light American coffee drinker might find too rich for their blood. If extra water is added at the preparation stage in an effort to achieve a “smoother” flavor, I find the result is disappointing. The Boquete price of $4.22 per pound makes this coffee especially attractive to budget-minded coffee enthusiasts.

I went to the Boquete fairgrounds today. I was one of the first customers to enjoy a 50-cent cup of Cafe Duran coffee at the fair this year, served from one of the many machines strategically positioned around the grounds.

It was a surprisingly well brewed, hot, dark, and satisfying cup of one of the finest coffees grown in Boquete.
Enjoy the Fair!