Panama
La Ponderosa, Gesha "Lupulo" Microlot - Panama
250g
*Competition Series*
Gesha "Lupulo" Special Anaerobic Fermentation
QUALITY SCORE: 94.00
Cup Notes
Raspberry / Elder Flower / Apricot / Red Grape / Cherry
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*
Details
- Producer
- Gilberto Cardoze
- Country
- Panama
- Terroir
- Chiriquì
- Altitude
- 1400 - 1500
- Process
- Special Anaerobic
- Arabica cultivar
- Geisha
- Picked in
- Mar - Apr 2019
- Arrived in
- October 2019
- Shipped in
- Box + Vacuum pack
- Roast profile by
- Rubens Gardelli
- Roasted on
- Customised solid-drum roaster
THE STORY BEHIND
The Ponderosa farm is located between 1.300 and 1.700 masl on the slopes of Volcan Baru, facing the Pacific ocean. Set in the middle of the mountains and a native rain forest, that covers about 40% of the property, the finca has a great variety of flora and fauna. The ever-changing climate where the rain, sun and changing temperature create perfectly balanced growing conditions, provides the base for an excellent cup.
5 years ago Mr. Gilberto Cardoze acquired the Finca Ponderosa originally as a cattle farm, but being so close to the Cordillera and on the slopes of El Volcan, he soon noticed, that he was the owner of some prime coffee growing ground. Gilberto is a successful entrepreneur, and coffee has long been Gilberto’s passion. With the new land and the support of his quality manager Ratibor Hartmann, who possesses lifelong experience in coffee farming and processing, Gilberto has dived into this passion of his.
It is only the second year of real production outcome at Ponderosa but the standards have already been set high, thanks to an amazing cup profile that the environment of the finca and the people working its coffee are creating.
At the moment the only two varietals already producing coffee are Geisha and Bourbon, but there are a lot more that were planted and are expect to produce cherries in the next few years, even a few varietals new to Panama. All the coffee on the farm is shade grown, under a native rainforest cover.
The processing facilities at Ponderosa are all new and state of the art. In addition to African raised beds and mechanical driers there are also some stainless-steel tanks installed for adding fermentation (aerobic and anaerobic) to the processing, creating a wide pallet of amazing flavours in the coffees.
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 an intense search for Geisha among coffee buyers and a primal pilgrimage to Ethiopia to find the source of its flavour. 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.
THE FERMENTATION PROCESS
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.
Any fermentation process is anaerobic as such, meaning that the yeast and bacteria that do the work of fermenting a coffee cherry’s sugars do not need the presence of oxygen to successfully complete their mission of transforming the organic material.
This lot was anaerobically fermented with the addition of the cascade/hops yeast and then dried following the natural processing method.
