When people think about Durán in Panama, they usually think first of coffee. Café Durán has been part of Panamanian life since the beginning of the 20th century and has grown into one of the country's most recognizable beverage brands. But there is another side to the company that is easy for visitors to overlook: Té Durán.
Walk through a Panamanian supermarket and you will see Durán products sitting alongside the country's coffee, soft drinks and other everyday staples. Tea is not necessarily the first drink foreigners associate with Panama, but Té Durán is an interesting example of how an essentially international beverage has become part of the country's local food culture. Café Durán officially describes its business today as covering three broad categories: roasted and ground coffee, instant coffee, and tea and infusions.
A tea brand with a much older story behind it
The fascinating thing about Té Durán is that its story is really part of the much bigger Café Durán story.
The company traces its origins to 1907, when Esteban Durán Amat began operating in Gorgona, in the area that was being transformed by the construction of the Panama Canal. The original business was a small general store, and Durán began roasting coffee on a small scale. The coffee business eventually became the company's defining product.
From those humble beginnings, the company developed into a major Panamanian food and beverage operation. More than a century later, tea and infusions form part of the same portfolio.
That makes a box of Té Durán an interesting little piece of modern Panamanian history. It isn't some exotic product recently imported into the country for tourists. It comes from a company that has been selling beverages to Panamanians for generations.
What kind of tea is Té Durán?
Té Durán isn't simply one particular tea. The company offers a range of teas and infusions, including traditional tea products and flavored options. Its current website, for example, promotes flavored varieties including manzanarac, while its broader tea and infusion category sits alongside its coffee products.
That is worth understanding because when someone in Panama says té, they aren't necessarily talking about a steaming cup of traditional black tea in the British sense. The world of supermarket tea includes herbal infusions, flavored teas and other preparations that can be enjoyed hot or cold.
And Panama's climate makes the cold version particularly appealing.
Tea in a tropical country
There is something slightly funny about the idea of drinking hot tea in Panama when it is 30°C outside and the humidity feels like somebody has wrapped the country in a wet towel.
But Panamanians do drink hot beverages.
And tea can also become a completely different experience when it is chilled. A fruit or herbal infusion over ice can make much more sense after walking around Casco Viejo, hiking in El Valle, exploring Panama City's neighborhoods or spending an afternoon on the Caribbean coast.
For travellers, this is one of those small cultural discoveries that is easy to miss. Panama isn't traditionally marketed internationally as a tea destination, yet tea is sitting quietly on supermarket shelves alongside products that are much more obviously associated with the country.
The Durán name means more than tea
One reason Té Durán is interesting is that the brand is connected to an unusually long-lived Panamanian company.
Café Durán says it has been operating since 1907 and currently works with coffee producers from different parts of Panama. Its main coffee processing facilities include Río Colorado in Chiriquí, which receives Arabica coffee, and Garicín in Coclé, which receives Robusta.
The company has also invested heavily in modern production. Its newer plant in Garicín, Penonomé, was built with an investment exceeding US$20 million and incorporates solar energy and rainwater collection.
So when you pick up Té Durán, you are buying a relatively small part of a much larger Panamanian food industry.
Why travellers should try it
If you are backpacking around Panama, there is a good reason to try ordinary supermarket products rather than spending your entire trip eating and drinking things specifically designed for tourists.
Look for Té Durán in a supermarket, buy a box, and make yourself a cup at your hostel.
It is cheap, easy and genuinely connected to everyday life in Panama.
You can also experiment with drinking the tea cold, especially with fruitier varieties. Put it over ice, add a little sugar if you like it sweet, and suddenly you have something that feels much more appropriate for a tropical afternoon.
And if you are staying somewhere surrounded by jungle, you can take the experiment even further: make a big jug in the morning, refrigerate it and have cold tea waiting after a hike.
A little piece of Panamanian supermarket culture
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Té Durán isn't that it is an extraordinary luxury tea. It is that it is ordinary.
That is exactly what makes it worth noticing.
Travel isn't always about finding the rarest restaurant, the most expensive coffee or the most famous attraction. Sometimes it is about walking into a supermarket in a country you have never visited, looking at the shelves and realizing that an apparently simple packet of tea belongs to a much bigger story.
In the case of Durán, that story reaches back to a tiny business in Gorgona in the early years of the Panamanian Republic, through the enormous transformation caused by the Canal, and eventually into a modern company producing coffee, tea and infusions for consumers across Panama.
So next time you are wandering around Panama and see Té Durán, don't just think of it as another box of tea.
Think of it as a little taste of the country's everyday history.
And yes, it works perfectly well after a sweaty jungle hike.