It’s a coffee nerd’s dream: Coffee farmers from all over Panama are gathering at their annual meeting to share their most prized coffees. Expert tasters and respected industry veterans are flying from every corner of the globe to judge these exceptional cherries. Hundreds of coffees are tasted. One reaches the lips of the stoic coffee judges and causes a sensation. A judge proclaims,”I see the face of God in the cup!”
That’s how the coffee variety known as Geisha was introduced to the world. Or at least re-introduced. The story of the Geisha is, of course, more complicated than that convenient anecdote. The core of the story is that the Geisha plant was thought to offer cherries without exceptional flavor until it was cultivated at high altitude in Panama. The Geisha illustrates very succinctly that the environment in which a coffee plant is grown will greatly affect how it’s seeds (beans) taste.
Of course, after the Geisha sensation, everyone scrambles to plant Geisha lots on their own coffee farm. Who has the established coffee-growing infrastructure, generations of accumulated cultivation knowledge, and the impeccable coffee growing environment that could excel in producing a highly-prized coffee plant that has shocked the world with its vibrancy and complexity? The answer is Colombia and in 2018 they’ve been growing the rock star plant for over 10 years.
The El Vergel farm is located on the Colombian Coffee Growing Axis. The heart of coffee growing country deep in the Colombian Andes. Perfect 1800M altitude and consistently warm temperatures with endless sunshine. This 2018 Geisha harvest contains all the excitement of that first Panamanian God cup but with a clarity and consistency that Colombia is famous for. Geisha was re-born in Panama but it’s died and gone to heaven in Colombia.
Written by our head Workshop Roaster, Hugh Morretta
