This is our first year working with Jose Bolaños, and this Gesha separation is remarkably dynamic and complex. In the cup we find a fruit-forward profile of strawberry, nectarine, and jasmine.
Gesha
Llanada de Naranjos, San Agustín
2,000 masl
February, 2023
Hand-picked at peak ripeness. Floated to further remove defects. Depulped. Dry fermented for 60 hours. Washed. Dried in parabolic dryers for 16 days.
This is our first year working with José, but we've been working in San Agustín since the founding of our company. San Agustín was the first region we really started to focus on, and it remains one of the places held closest to our hearts. Coffees from this region, especially at this altitude, are some of the most complex and dynamic profiles in all of coffee, and it is an honor to work with José's coffee and bring it to market.
Gesha was originally collected from coffee forests of Ethiopia in the 1930's. From there, it was sent to the Lyamungo Research Station in Tanzania, and then brought to Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE) in Central America in the 1953, where it was logged as accession T2722. It was distributed throughout Panama via CATIE in the 1960’s after its tolerance to coffee leaf rust was recognized. However, it was not widely planted because the plant's branches were brittle and not favored by farmers. Gesha came to prominence in 2005, when the Peterson family of Boquete, Panama, entered it into the Best of Panama competition and auction. It received exceptionally high marks and broke the then-record for green coffee auction prices, selling for over $20 per pound. Since then, the variety has become a resounding favorite of brewing and roasting competition winners and coffee enthusiasts alike.
The cost of getting a coffee from cherry to beverage varies enormously depending on its place of origin and the location of its consumption. The inclusion of price transparency is a starting point to inform broader conversation around the true costs of production and the sustainability of specialty coffee as a whole.