Chiriquí is famous for Geisha coffee from the slopes of Volcán Barú, but its Pacific lowlands around Alanje and Divalá have kept old cacao trees for generations. A private collector gathered local cacao from these towns for over fifty years, and seeds from that living collection were planted at Finca Las Heliconias, where Quetzal Cacao now makes tree-to-bar chocolate. The province is small in hectares but important in ideas: it is where coffee’s cupping culture is rubbing off on cacao, where the Boquete Expo Feria gives Bocas growers a stage, and where the question of whether Panama should protect what it already grows, rather than just plant more, is asked most loudly.
What to know
- Finca Las Heliconias and Quetzal Cacao: a living collection of Panamanian cacao turned into bars.
- Coffee tasting infrastructure (labs, Q-graders, Best of Panama) is the model cacao people here want to copy.
- Boquete’s fairs and coffee shops are the easiest place in western Panama to taste local chocolate.
- The lowlands are hot and seasonal, with a real dry season from December to April, unlike Bocas.
Visiting
Stay in Boquete or David. Look for Quetzal Cacao and Panamanian bars at Boquete Coffee Traders and the Tuesday market, and ask about farm visits in the Alanje lowlands.
- Mahogany Chocolate factory tour, The Perfect Pair, Avenida Central, Bajo Boquete. Factory tour and chocolate-making class in the café that shares the building. Cacao is not grown in Boquete, so this is the place to understand what happens after the beans leave Bocas. Website →
- Chox Artisan Chocolate workshop, Boquete, Chiriquí (confirm address). A small family shop that will show the chocolate-making process and run a hands-on workshop if you ask ahead. Famous locally for its filled chocolates. Website →
Sources: Newsroom Panama, Panama’s cacao rush (2026) · Ferro-Lozano et al., Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution (2026)