It started with a conversation between Oliver Brown from Condesa Co Lab and Matty Ristretto from White Horse Coffee. Call it serendipity. 

"I've just cupped one of the best coffees of my life, Matty."

And so the journey began, with the intoduction to Lost Origin Coffee Lab: a curious bunch fusing the worlds of coffee and beer in a way that had never been done before.

Our story can be traced back to 2019. In a constant search for inspiration and new flavors, we heard of dark matter coffee out of Chicago, a brewery using beer ingredients (yeast,hops) to process Salvadorian coffee. This shifted the team’s mindset to the possibility of having our very own coffee processing facility.

To put our theory on trial we first reached out to a couple farms and ended up working with Santos Cafe for their 2020-2021 harvest. We shared with them our yeast cultures, enzymes, nutrients, hops and created a couple processing protocols for them. simultaneously we contacted Elida and we asked to analyze some of the juices/mosto or byproduct from their fermentation; our findings made them reach us for a collaboration with Ben Put at Monogram on a specific auction lot This type of validation from the industry secured a path to further explore Panamanian coffees and the potential of a controlled environment to exploit its unique qualities. 2021/2022 was focused on studying, and learning the local techniques used by traditional coffee producers. Determined to Identify areas of impact within our industry knowledge In 2022, we presented our unique approach to coffee processing. Qualifying and winning a government grant for the application of science and technology in the agricultural sector of Panama.