Coffee Sketcher

Carlos Aguilera Franceschi

Properties3
descriptionThe third-generation Panamanian producer who turned his grandmother's farm, Carmen Estate, into a Geisha name — and ran it through the 2023 Best of Panama record and a sale to Chinese owners.
tagsperson, panama, geisha
aliasesCarlos A. Franceschi, Carlos Aguilera, Carlos Franceschi

6 min read

Carlos Aguilera Franceschi

Carlos Aguilera Franceschi is the Panamanian coffee producer who runs Carmen Estate, the farm in the Volcán highlands that sold a Geisha lot for $10,005 per kilogram at the 2023 Best of Panama auction — the first coffee to break five figures per kilo at that competition. He is the grandson of the couple who planted the farm, and importers describe him as its third-generation producer and managing director (Sucafina, accessed 2026-07-23; La Cabra, accessed 2026-07-23).

Roasters usually shorten his name on bag labels to “Carlos A. Franceschi,” which is why the same person appears under two names in coffee shops (Caldera Coffees, accessed 2026-07-23).

Story

The Franceschi family left Corsica for Panama around 1800 and spent generations in cattle, farming, and shipbuilding before coffee (Sucafina, accessed 2026-07-23; PAGA Microroastery, accessed 2026-07-23). The coffee itself starts with his grandmother: Carmen Franceschi proposed planting coffee on the family land with her husband Efrain, and the farm carries her name. Carlos inherited it as their grandson (La Cabra, accessed 2026-07-23).

His timing was the point. He took over as Panama’s coffee reputation was being rebuilt around Geisha — the intensely floral, tea-like variety that Hacienda La Esmeralda made famous in 2004 — and, rather than keep selling solid commercial coffee, planted more Geisha and aimed the farm squarely at the premium auction market (La Cabra, accessed 2026-07-23). Alongside that he kept the farm’s older plantings of Caturra and Typica, two long-established Latin American varieties that make up most of its roughly 1,200 bags (60 kg each) a year (Panama Varietals, accessed 2026-07-23).

That bet paid off at the 2023 Best of Panama, where a 25-kilogram washed Geisha from the farm scored 96.5 and set the auction record. The full lot, buyers, and figures are on the Carmen Estate note.

Processing: the “Long Play” method

Aguilera Franceschi is associated with a slow, controlled ferment the farm markets as Long Play Coffee (LPC). After the fruit is washed off, the beans sit for 48 hours in sealed, temperature-controlled steel tanks at 25 °C — sealed meaning oxygen is kept out, which is what “anaerobic” means and what pushes the coffee toward fruitier, more perfumed flavours. They then dry slowly on raised mesh beds for about six days and finish in a dark room (Caldera Coffees, accessed 2026-07-23). The resulting cups are sold on notes of white flower, yuzu, and nectarine.

People and land

Picking is done by hand by Ngäbe-Buglé workers — Panama’s largest Indigenous group, whose people migrate seasonally to the Chiriquí coffee harvest — trained to take only fully ripe, bright red cherries (PAGA Microroastery, accessed 2026-07-23; the roaster spells it “Nôbe-Buglé”). The farm’s own account of its labour practices covers healthcare and housing for workers and their families, schooling rather than fieldwork for their children, low-water processing, and recycling mill waste as fertiliser — an account that comes from roaster and importer write-ups rather than an independent audit (PAGA Microroastery, accessed 2026-07-23; Panama Varietals, accessed 2026-07-23).

Ownership change

The farm no longer belongs to the family. It was bought by the Dashang Group of Dalian, China, and is held locally through Panama Red Carmen Cafe Trading S.A. — but Aguilera Franceschi stayed on to run it, which is why the coffee’s style did not reset when the deed changed hands (Sucafina, accessed 2026-07-23; Caldera Coffees, accessed 2026-07-23). It is one of the clearer examples of Chinese capital moving upstream into the farms that supply Panama’s luxury coffee market.

Dashang Group is a Dalian department-store conglomerate, and it now markets the farm’s coffee through its own Chinese café brand, 瑰夏·卡门·帕洛玛咖啡店 (“Geisha · Carmen · Paloma Coffee”), describing the beans as its own (Dashang Group, accessed 2026-07-23). The practical effect for Aguilera Franceschi is that he is now producing for an owner with a retail chain to fill, not only for auction buyers.

To verify

  • Which year the farm started. The importer’s account says Carmen Franceschi proposed coffee in 1950 (Sucafina, accessed 2026-07-23); two other sources date the founding to 1960 (La Cabra; Panama Varietals, both accessed 2026-07-23). Same conflict is flagged on Carmen Estate — treat 1950 as the idea and 1960 as the founding only once a primary source confirms it.
  • Who actually runs the farm day to day now. Sucafina and Caldera both describe Aguilera Franceschi as the operator; La Cabra says “the farm is run by manager Jean Paul Langenstein,” a former roaster who moved into production (La Cabra, accessed 2026-07-23). No fetched source gives a handover date — the “since 2024” figure in the underlying research report is uncorroborated. Confirm current titles before stating either on camera.
  • Altitude of the farm. Published figures disagree badly: 1,600–1,700 m (Panama Varietals), 1,750 m (PAGA), 1,650–1,900 m (Sucafina), 1,800 m for the Los Pozos lot (Caldera Coffees), and over 2,200 m for one Caturra block (La Cabra) — all accessed 2026-07-23. These may describe different parcels; do not quote a single number.
  • The acquisition, and how Dashang Group and Panama Red Carmen Cafe Trading S.A. relate. Both names are confirmed, the year is not, and no source explains whether the Panamanian company is Dashang’s local vehicle or a separate party.
  • The competition record before 2023. Roaster copy claims Finca Carmen has placed in the top ten at Best of Panama every year since 2003, took 1st in Traditional Washed in 2020, and placed 6th with a natural Geisha at 92.5 in 2021 (Caldera Coffees, accessed 2026-07-23), while a directory claims “top 5 in specialty cupping contests each year” (Panama Varietals, accessed 2026-07-23). These are marketing claims from single, non-independent sources; check them against official bestofpanama.org results.
  • Any official web presence. A producer directory lists the farm’s Instagram as @carmenestatecoffee (Panama Varietals, accessed 2026-07-23), but a fetch of that handle returned no readable profile, so it is unconfirmed here. The nearest thing to an official presence is the owner’s own product page (Dashang Group, accessed 2026-07-23) — which speaks for the farm but not for him.

Sources

  1. Best of Panama — official competition site — accessed 2026-07-23
  2. Sucafina — Carmen Estate Caturra FW offering — accessed 2026-07-23
  3. Panama Varietals — Carmen Estate producer profile — accessed 2026-07-23
  4. La Cabra — Carmen Caturra — accessed 2026-07-23
  5. Caldera Coffees — The comeback of a classic Geisha from Carlos A. Franceschi — accessed 2026-07-23
  6. PAGA Microroastery — Finca Carmen — accessed 2026-07-23
  7. Tea & Coffee Trade Journal — Best of Panama competition and auction sets new lot record — accessed 2026-07-23
  8. Dashang Group — Geisha · Carmen · Paloma Coffee business page (farm’s owner) — accessed 2026-07-23
  9. Dashang Group — Panama Carmen Estate champion Geisha coffee — accessed 2026-07-23

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