The Story of Geisha
I would wager that Gesha has adopted the mantle as the most prestigious and elevated coffee varietal. Naturally, this also means it can be contentious and its position debated.
We are soon launching a range dedicated only to Gesha. So, what is it about this varietal that warrants its own showcase? In this week’s newsletter, I wanted to take you through its history as well as argue that it’s justified to be so revered, but also contextualise why not all Gesha will be mind-blowing.
Gesha can be traced back to Ethiopia, but it is the journey via Tanzania, through Costa Rica, and then into Panama, where its special potential really became identified.
In 2005, a Gesha lot won the Best of Panama competition. The lot was grown by the Peterson Family at Finca Esmeralda. The lot at the time sold for a record-setting $350 per pound. This is £590 a kilo. That is for the green coffee, so the price goes up when you roast and incur weight loss and have a margin applied by the roaster.
In the book God in a Cup written by Michaele Weissman, it is explained that by a process of deduction the Peterson family isolated this low-yielding plant on the farm as the source of the best coffees being produced.
Since then many producers have sought to plant and grow Gesha in the hopes of mimicking this outstanding success and cup profile.
With every “varietal” or “cultivar” there are many mutations of it, which effectively means Gesha isn’t always the same Gesha.
In most coffee-producing countries it’s hard to buy coffee seedlings and or saplings and it has become somewhat of a black market. This combined with the mutations and other variables in growing coffee such as soil, climate, and microbes, means a wide variety of Gesha coffee started to be harvested that didn’t live up to the famous Panama lots.
The increased renown and demand for this new varietal meant more people were now tasting it for the first time, but unfortunately what I saw in the coffee industry was a lot of coffee people’s first experience was simply not being comparable to the infamous profiles of Esmerelda that won the competitions. The coffees were good but not outstanding. On top of that, they were still very expensive and this seemed to create a wave of scepticism about Gesha’s real quality and value.
Basically, if you really want to taste what Gesha is capable of it needs to be an expensive version of that coffee, but because of its reputation, demand, and low yield, even a subpar Gesha is expensive. A great Ethiopian coffee or brilliant pink bourbon can outscore a mediocre Gesha though still end up costing less.
However, again and again, at industry blind tastings I see the group gravitate toward a few cups. In hushed tones (it’s rude to talk a lot at blind cuppings) people tell each other, “cup 9 is amazing, I bet it’s expensive”, and guess what — these coffees are Gesha. Outstanding Gesha flavour profiles are extremely aromatic and perfumed, floral, light-bodied, sweet, fruity, clean, and complex.
We taste a lot of Gesha every year and have been selecting lots since we started the roastery. The lots we select have often and still often come from Panama, but more and more outstanding Colombian Gesha is now being grown and processed. Gesha village was also founded back in the homeland of Gesha — Ethiopia. These coffees have also become extremely high quality.
Our Gesha range will mostly consist of these origins but we are also eager to taste others. It’s exciting for us that there is enough outstanding Gesha being grown that we can now offer a specific genre dedicated to showcase them. There are other outstanding varietals but we still come back to Gesha as the benchmark.
Thank you for reading. Look out for our Gesha range coming soon!
— Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood
Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood is the co-founder of Colonna and Small’s in Bath head of Colonna Coffee. Maxwell publishes a fortnightly newsletter, No 6 on Panama Geisha issued Sunday 18 April 2021.
I would agree with what Maxwell has to say. I often wondered from where, how, people obtained Geisha to grow. I was not aware there was a black market in the plants.
God in a Cup is an absolute must read on the discovery of Geisha in Panama, and the search to try and locate its origins in Ethiopia.
At a guess, the problem with Geisha, having exactly the right growing conditions, the soil, the terroir, the altitude, the microclimate, the weather, the soil microorganisms.
Look out for Geisha from the Panama Estate of Ninety Plus.
Ninety Plus has reforested a degraded cattle ranch in Panama. Its coffees have earned the world’s highest accolades and have been used to win five of the past six World Brewers Cup Championships.
One to try, which few will have come across, is Wush Wush, not a Geisha.
The only thing I will say of Wush Wush, it is weird. I have never tried anything like it.
Imperial Teas, housed in a Norman building, the place for tea, but also coffee and tea and coffee making paraphernalia. Earlier I had dropped off three varieties of green beans from an estate in Cameroon. I returned later to collect a French press and to look at the glassware from Simple Lab. I also had a look around. I could not believe my eyes, Panama Geisha from Finca Esmeralda.
It was like stumbling upon the Holy Grail without really looking. Could I resist? Er, no. £23 for 125g.
