ABOUT ARTURO PAZ

Arturo Paz is an exceptional producer who has placed in the top ten of the Honduran Cup of Excellence many times. He also serves as the chief of quality control at our longtime exporting partner, San Vicente. It remains rare for someone to be both a producer and a professional taster, which gives Arturo a unique advantage—he is exceptionally skilled at evaluating and refining his own coffee. This lot comes from his Gesha garden, and it is an honor to finally have the opportunity to work with both this coffee and this remarkable producer.

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.