

Panama
250g
QUALITY SCOREj: 91.25
Cup Notes
Jasmine / Rose / Nectarine / Plum / Raspberry
Suggested for espresso and filter
when we roast
We freshly roast to order all coffees on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (excluding national holidays), and ship the same day! Cut-off time is 11:59pm (UTC+1) of the day before the roast day. *We only ship whole beans*
There is a new contender for the "Best of Panama" award given by the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama (SCAP) - Carl Janson's Janson Estate Geisha coffee!
Over the course of many years, Janson has received numerous Best of Panama awards thanks to its constant focus on quality improvement.
Hacienda Las Lagunas produces several different Geisha lots each year, identified by a lot number based on the fermentation process the beans undergo and the period when they are harvested.
We received several Hacienda Las Lagunas Geisha samples, and lot number 883 was Rubens' favourite in the blind tasting.
Hacienda Las Lagunas, named after its lagoons and wetlands, is a family-owned Hacienda established in 1941 by Carl Axel Janson, an immigrant from Sweden; in 1990, Carl’s sons Michael, Carl, Ricardo, and Peter took over the business and officially founded Janson Coffee. More than 30 years later, the story continues through Kai and Jannette – second Janson generation, along with Jannette’s son Miguel – third Janson generation. Today, the three generations lead all operations in Panama to bring Janson Coffee to the local market and abroad.
Hacienda Las Lagunas is located to the west of the Barú Volcano and is characterised by rich volcanic soil and several natural springs. Different plots of the coffee plantation are surrounded by areas of a natural reserve which serve as a barrier to protect the plantation and are also a vital habitat for a large variety of birds and wildlife.
In 1993, the team built a processing plant exclusively for specialty coffee, including several sections to separate coffee by quality and origin. Las Lagunas applies natural and washed processing using modern technology combined with artisanal methods to obtain the best quality. All their premium coffees go through traditional preparation plus hand selection.
The hand-selected Single Origin Geisha is processed and stored with utmost care in a temperature- and humidity-controlled storage.
Rare, exclusive and fetching a heavy price tag, Gesha is often associated with coffees from Panama, while, in fact, the cultivation of the Gesha varietal began there as late as in the 1960s.
Gesha is an original variety of coffee that was discovered in the 1930s in the mountains around the Southwestern town of Gesha, Ethiopia. Gesha trees grow tall and can be distinguished by their beautiful elongated leaves. The quality of this coffee can be drastically improved when grown at extremely high elevation.
The Geisha revolution brought about an intense search for Geisha among coffee buyers and a primal pilgrimage to Ethiopia to find the source of that flavor. The roads those buyers traveled brought them in a wood in far western Ethiopia near a small town called Gesha in the forests where coffee was born and still grows wild.
Gesha 1931 comes from this place.
Its name reflects the place and year it was collected by scientists who fanned out on a research expedition in Ethiopia to catalogue its coffee varieties.
As producers give increasing consideration to the effect of fermentation on the quality and profile of their coffee, they are adopting different and interesting techniques to their repertoires in order to diversify their offering. One method that is becoming more popular is fermenting coffee in a controlled anaerobic environment, meaning that the coffee is held in a vessel without any presence of oxygen for a part of the fermentation process.
For this lot, the cherries are transported to the "beneficio" (the processing station) at the end of each day of harvest, in plastic crates instead of sacks. The sacks have been replaced by the crates because during the transportation in sacks some of the juice was squeezed from the sacks on the bottom by the ones on the top. Transporting cherries in the crates has eliminated that problem, so the cherries are better preserved for fermentation.
When the coffee arrives at the beneficio, it goes through a mechanic siphon to select the best cherries, distinguished by weight, and separate any leaves, wigs, or dirt.
Intact cherries undergone a 72-hour anaerobic fermentation inside sealed barrels, then dried for up to 42 days on raised beds in an isolated house next to the beneficio.