This extraordinary Gesha selection is the first coffee we've ever tasted from Ricardo, and it is a stunner. It is intensely sweet and aromatic, with white jasmine florals, confectioners' sugar, and tangerine.
Gesha
Algeciras, Huila
1,950 masl
December, 2023
Hand-picked at peak ripeness. Floated to further remove defects and de-pulped on the day of harvest. Dry-fermented for 30 hours. Dried on raised beds.
This is our first year purchasing coffee from Ricardo Silva and his family. We were introduced to this coffee through our exporting partners, and it is one of the best Geshas we have ever tasted from Colombia. Producers throughout Central and South America continue planting Gesha, which increases genetic divergence and diversity through natural hybridization and gives producers other lucrative varieties to explore.
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.