ABOUT JUAN MEDINA

This is our first year purchasing coffee from Juan Medina. We were introduced to his coffee by Benjamin Paz at San Vicente during our visit to Honduras this past spring. As Gesha continues to proliferate across the coffee-producing world, it is exciting to experience this variety grown in diverse soils and climates. We are thrilled to showcase Juan’s Gesha and look forward to seeing how it evolves.

ABOUT GESHA

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.