Ethiopia

Gesha Village Oma lot 51- Ethiopia

250g

Cup Notes

Jasmine / Raspberry / Strawberry / Kiwi / Melon / Peach suggested for espresso and filter

Competition Series

Quality Score: 94.00 


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*

Details

Quality Score
94.00
Producer
Gesha Village Estate
Country
Ethiopia
Terroir
Bench Maji
Altitude
1940-2020 mt
Arabica cultivar
Gesha 1931
Picked in
January 2017
Arrived in
July 2017
Shipped in
Box + Vacuum pack
Roast profile by
Rubens Gardelli
Roasted on
Self-made drum roaster

THE STORY BEHIND


We are very excited to share our first ever coffee lot from Gesha Village in Ethiopia!

Gesha Village Estate is an exciting and inspiring project from Adam Overton and Rachel Samuel, with the help of many talented individuals. The coffee farm is located near the Gori Gesha forest in far western Ethiopia, near what is considered the origin of the Gesha lineage that has since traveled so far.

In 2011 Adam and Rachel began developing a 500 hectare coffee farm in Gesha, Ethiopia with one vision in mind: to produce the best coffee in the world. After an exhaustive search, the estate location was chosen based on our strict criteria of altitude (1900-2100 MASL), ample rainfall, temperature patterns, rich virgin forest soil, old growth trees, and an existing coffee ecosystem.
A seed selection has been harvested from the Gori Gesha wild coffee forest found 20 km from our farm, the site where the famous Panamanian Gesha was selected in the 1930s.

In their first three years we have planted over 30,000 native shade trees on land that had previously been deforested.
Research, conservation, and exploration of the Gesha variety are ongoing focuses of their farm. They have begun projects on genetic testing, climate research and a Gesha botanical garden.

The planting density of the farm at 2000-trees/hectare is moderate and supports a sustainable ecosystem for our coffee. The priority is maintaining the rich biodiversity of the native forest canopy that the heirloom Gesha coffee spontaneously grows in.
The Meanit people of Ethiopia are the inhabitants and protectors of Gesha.

THE VARIETY

Rare, exclusive and fetching a heavy price tag, Gesha is often associated with coffees from Panama when in fact cultivation of the Gesha varietal only began there 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 and elongated leaves. The quality of this coffee can be drastically improved when grown at extremely high elevation.

The Geisha revolution set off a 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 is 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.

THE FERMENTATION PROCESS

Dry process seems simple: pick the fruit, lay it out in the sun until it turns from red to brown to near-back, and then hull off off the thick, dried outer layer in one step to reveal the green bean.

It is a method suited to arid regions, where the sun and heat can dry the seed inside the intact fruit skin.

It's often referred to as "natural coffee" because of its simplicity, and because the fruit remains intact and undisturbed, a bit like drying grapes into raisins. Since it requires minimal investment, the dry process method is a default to create cheap commodity-grade coffee in areas that have the right climate capable of drying the fruit and seed. 

But it’s a fail in humid or wet regions. If the drying isn't progressing fast enough, the fruit degrades, rots or molds. 

Dry-processed coffees can also be wildly inconsistent. If you want a cleanly-fruited, sweet, intense cup, dry process (DP) takes more hand labor than the wet process. Even the most careful pickers will take green unripe or semi-ripe coffee off the branch as they pick red, ripe cherry. If these are not removed in the first days of drying, the green turns to brown that is hard to distinguish from the ripe fruit.