I recently saw an ad for high quality coffee from Panama.
I immediately went to Google Earth to see how high the mountain range is in the center of Panama. I had a misconception that Panama was a large flat area that allowed ships to cross the Isthmus. There is a substantial mountain range in both the north and southern part of the country.
My concern was that high quality coffee, which is always an Arabica, is only grown on moist mountainsides. It turns out that humid mountainsides of altitudes above 5000 feet definitely exists in Panama.
Many years ago I had the opportunity to taste test coffee. In the home I stay at in Tokyo there is a nearby coffee bean company that has more than 30 different national origin coffee beans which one can have roasted to any level of roasting. With several members of our family we did daily tests on different countries of origin and different roasting combinations. The bean we found to be the most delicious was from Yemen. That bean is referred to commercially as Mocha Sanini.
The other bean which is regularly drunk and popular in Japan is the Blue Mountain bean.
It is generally considered that the best coffee beans come from tropical humid mountain climates. Because of the steep slope of such mountains very little in the way of fertilizers are carried uphill and most of the quality of the plant depends on the soil.
The optimal altitude for coffee seems to be 5000 feet and higher.
The first Europe encounter with coffee is attributed to Marco Polo who inturn attributed the beans to a Yemenni tradesman he met in Beirut Lebanon.