Up in the Hill

Up in the Hill has grown cacao into chocolate on Isla Bastimentos since founding the farm in 2003, part of Panama's Bocas del Toro archipelago. It is a family organic operation rather than a commercial estate, extending its cacao work into coconut oil and natural body products alongside the coffee it also grows and serves — a small, diversified farm economy rather than a single-crop operation built for export volume.

The hilltop cafe is where the farm's work becomes something visitors actually taste: house hot chocolate made with fresh coconut milk, a drink that ties the farm's two signature crops — cacao and coconut — into a single cup. Beyond the cafe, the farm runs permaculture tours, opening its growing methods to visitors interested in how organic cacao, coffee and coconut are cultivated together on hill terrain rather than cleared monoculture.

It is a small operation by design, built around showing rather than just selling — the farm tours and the hilltop cafe both function as a direct link between what grows on the hill and what ends up in a cup, a connection many larger chocolate and coffee operations can only describe rather than demonstrate on-site.