Welcome sign at Finca El Divisi in Colombia’s Huila Department. Courtesy of Chromatic Coffee.

I’ll start with a familiar story. Around 2004, a Panama coffee farmer, Price Peterson, found a field of coffee trees growing on his property that was different in appearance from other trees. He entered the coffee from those trees as a separate lot in the 2004 Best of Panama green coffee competition, and that coffee, competing as the “Geisha” variety of Arabica, blew away that year’s competition, that year’s coffees from any other place in the world, and everyone who tasted it.

Coffee from this newly rediscovered variety tasted startlingly complex and different and continues to taste that way even when planted elsewhere, so long as the seedlings represent the authentic Geisha as rediscovered in Panama, and growing conditions are appropriate.

This is not the place to go into the confusion and debate that has developed over the past decade around Geisha, from debates about how to spell the name to Geishas that don’t taste like Geishas. What is important for this report is the fact that a previously unrecognized variety of Arabica coffee was found simply growing in a Panama coffee field, and that previously unrecognized variety went on to change the world of specialty coffee.

True, Geisha/Gesha was subsequently traced back through Costa Rica to Kenya and Tanzania to a specific region in Ethiopia. Nevertheless, the possibility remains that there could be another Geisha growing in someone else’s field of anonymous trees, another botanical and sensory gold mine waiting to be discovered.

Perhaps it is that possibility, the potential emergence of another game-changing variety of Arabica from anonymity, that has encouraged attention to a cluster of new coffee varieties that have popped up over the past three or four years on roaster websites and in our reviews. In particular, we have heard a lot about Pink Bourbon, Chiroso and Sidra, all coffee varieties that are new and relatively unfamiliar to most fine coffee enthusiasts, and all apparently first selected from fields in Colombia or neighboring Ecuador.

New Names and Claims

For this month’s report, we sample some of these relatively new varieties. Do they actually taste that different or superior to more familiar varieties like Typica, Bourbon, Caturra, Castillo or Catuai, varieties that typically make up the coffee samples from Colombia and Central America we test at Coffee Review? How well do these newer varieties stand up when compared to samples from that sensory powerhouse Geisha? What, roughly, can consumers expect when they buy a coffee from trees of one of these relatively new varieties?

Working the covered drying beds at Finca El Diviso in Colombia. Courtesy of Chromatic Coffee.

We were particularly interested in tasting those varieties that apparently were selected informally and turned out to taste different or exciting enough for other farmers to plant them and help establish them as relatively stable varieties. All three have created some internet buzz. Again, they are Sidra (sometimes called Sidra Bourbon), Pink Bourbon (note it is pink Bourbon, not yellow or red), and Chiroso (sometimes called Chiroso Caturra). We were able to source 14 samples said to be produced from trees of these varieties.

Other Newcomers

We also tested a smattering of coffees from other varieties that are not typically grown in Ecuador, Colombia or Central America, but which were recently brought in and established on farms there. They include the Ethiopian Wush Wush variety (a popular choice with 10 samples), the Kenyan SL28, and the fascinating Java, a variety first established in Java in the early 19th century with seed brought directly from Ethiopia, then refined by geneticists in Cameroon before rerelease as a stable (and often outstanding) variety under the Java name in the 1980s. This month we review a fine Java grown in Colombia at Finca El Roble by Jairo Ivan Lopez and Corvus Coffee, rating it at 95 for its clean, intense sweetness and its cocoa and rich berry notes suggesting the similar flavor complex in some Geisha profiles.

Processing coffee cherries at Finca El Roble in Colombia’s Quindio Department. Courtesy of Corvus Coffee.

We also tested single samples from a half-dozen other varieties, including Centroamericano and Milenio, both deliberate crosses between a tough, disease-resistant hybrid (Sarchimor) and an Ethiopia variety admired for its distinctive cup character (Sudan Rume). The goal with such F-1 crosses, as they are called, is to produce a variety robust enough to stand up to the stress of climate change while delivering the sensory complexity of fine Ethiopia coffees. In other words, a win-win. Centroamericano and Milenio were part of the first wave of F1 hybrid varieties created by a consortium including French research institute CIRAD, a regional network of national coffee institutes in Central America (PROMECAFE), and the tropical agricultural research and higher education center CATIE. F1 hybrid varieties are still relatively new in coffee agriculture. Only a handful have become commercially available to farmers in the past 15 years, including the Milenio reviewed here, produced by the Las Lajas micro-mill in Costa Rica and reviewed at 92 as sourced and roasted by Seattle’s Fulcrum Coffee Roasters.

Processing Hijinks Make Evaluation Challenging

Of the three emerging varieties we particularly focus on, Pink Bourbon has attracted the most internet praise. Chiroso and Sidra also have received good press, but not as much of it.

Our sampling of roasted coffees produced by these three newly publicized varieties was relatively modest in number (a total of 15). And evaluating their potential in the cup was complicated by the fact that some of these samples were processed by experimental anaerobic processing methods deliberately designed to intensify their complexity and distinction.

Fermentation barrels at Finca El Diviso where many anaerobic coffees are processed. Courtesy of Chromatic Coffee.

So, it’s difficult to tell how much of the surprise and excitement displayed by some of these samples comes from the new, unfamiliar tree variety and how much from the application of ingenious new processing methods. However, I personally have concluded that the often pleasing complexity and juicy structure of the best of these samples are mainly associated with their innate character. In other words, in my opinion (mine alone), the processing wrinkles may have intensified complexity and intensity, but the best of these samples were intrinsically impressive.

The New Variety Scorecard

Of the varieties we tested and focused on, Sidra considerably surpassed the others in average ratings, including both the Ethiopian Wush Wush and the much-admired Pink Bourbon and Chiroso. Given the relative few samples of each variety, however, it could just be the luck of the Sidra. Remember that we cup our samples blind; we have no idea of the identity of a sample at the moment we cup it.

• Sidra, seven samples, average rating 93, high 95 low 91
• Chiroso, five samples, average rating 89, high 94 low 84
• Pink Bourbon, three samples, average rating 90, high 92 low 89
• (For general comparison, Wush Wush 10 samples, average rating 88, high 93 low 81)

Three of the Sidra samples in particular — the top-rated Chromatic Coffee Colombia Finca El Diviso, the Euphora Coffee Ecuador Sidra, and the Kakalove Colombia Las Flores Sidra, all rated 95 — were particularly impressive, and all quite different, though alike in their thrilling floral and fruit intricacy and complex, nuanced layering of foundational tastes. The Chromatic Finca El Diviso is jammier, deeper, more fruit- and chocolate-toned than the others. The Euphora Ecuador Sidra is also deep, but floral, with a particularly exciting bright acidity that shimmers at the heart of the profile. The Kakalove Las Flores Sidra is a bit quieter, more balanced and complete than the others, with a characteristic Geisha-style layering of flowers and cocoa.

Typica-Bourbon Hybrids? Nope

The most prevalent explanation for why these three varieties are surprising and exceptional in the cup runs along these lines: They are complex and exciting because they are spontaneous hybrids of Bourbon and Typica and they embody the best of both of these varieties. Some internet accounts particularly emphasize the “better because they’re both” argument.

The pride New World farmers must take in celebrating the special virtues of new varieties that seem to brilliantly fuse the character of the two fundamental pillars of Latin American coffee, Typica and Bourbon, is understandable.

However, if genetic evidence is to be believed (and what else might we believe?), we are looking at three more examples of “Ethiopian escapees.” In other words, three more versions of the Geisha story. According to Christophe Montagnon, leading tropical agriculture geneticist and head of coffee genetics research firm RD2 Vision, Sidra, Pink Bourbon and Chiroso all have no relationship whatsoever to either Bourbon or Typica. They are part of a “Core Ethiopia” genetic group, consisting of Ethiopian “landrace” varieties selected for good performance by farmers.

Which farmers, and where did they do that selecting? The trees are not telling, and so far, no one has been able to trace any of these three varieties back through history, as was possible with Geisha/Gesha. So, we have the unraveling of this mystery to look forward to. But wherever the selection happened, most likely farmers or their technical advisors did the selecting, so I say score one for the coffee grassroots.

Two More Varieties: Chiroso, SL28

We review one Chiroso from Taiwan roaster at 94, the GK Coffee Colombia El Roble Chiroso Washed, which impressed with its delicacy, the way its flowers edged toward herb, displaying an engagingly fresh, gardeny character. The highest rated coffee in this month’s report not grown from Ethiopian-related plant material is the 94-point Equator Coffee Guatemala El Injerto SL28, in which the pungent, resinous note characteristic of the great Kenya SL28 variety sweetens and rounds beautifully in a mango and lavender direction.

Coffees drying at Finca El Injerto in Guatemala’s Huehuetenango Department. Courtesy of Equator Coffee.

Thanks and a Deeper Dive on Coffee Variety

Special thanks to Miguel Meza of Paradise Roasters and Christophe Montagnon of RD2 Vision for their generous advice on this report.

Senior Editor Kim Westerman and Associate Editor Jason Sarley co-cupped all samples and contributed to review language and ratings.

For more on coffee variety, I recommend the following resources:

Chris Kornman, Daily Coffee News, “The Coffee Roaster’s Complete Guide to Coffee Varieties and Cultivars”. Lucid and thorough.

Christophe Montagnon, “Arabica Coffee Cultivars Wheel” and associated materials . Authoritative and scholarly.

World Coffee Research’s “Coffee Varieties Catalog”. Meticulous and easy to access.

Or those muscular readers not afraid of heavy books can consult the varieties chapter in my recently published volume 21^st Century Coffee: A Guide. 

The post New Coffee Varieties: Sidra, Chiroso, Pink Bourbon, Wush Wush appeared first on Coffee Review.

Geisha seedlings in a Chiapas, Mexico nursery. Courtesy of Kim Westerman.

The Geisha variety of Arabica is the most expensive green coffee in the world. Year after year, this sought-after variety — known for (in the hands of a good roaster) its florality, delicate fruit, integrated structure and balance — breaks new price records in the Best of Panama auction. The Panama with the highest price in 2021 was a Geisha that sold for $2,568.00 — per pound. It’s gotten stratospheric in the way that wine auctions did long ago. You can debate the relative (in)sanity of this phenomenon, but the fact is that Geisha is the darling of the specialty coffee world.

Geisha’s Migration Around The Globe

Geisha originated in the Gori Gesha Forest of Ethiopia, but made its spectacular appearance on the global specialty coffee stage in Panama, where, in 2004, a Geisha grown by the Peterson family won the Best of Panama green coffee competition with an unprecedented high score. The following year, a Peterson Geisha won the competition again and was sold at auction with a then record-breaking winning bid of $305 a pound. The Geisha race was on. Geisha is now to Panama as Kona is to Hawai’i — its crown jewel and its most widely known luxury product. Not surprisingly, it didn’t take long for producers in other countries to try their hand at this fabled variety. In 2021, it’s hard to think of anywhere coffee is grown that doesn’t have at least some Geisha planted. The question is: How good is it? Does the legendary Geisha cup profile travel?

For this month’s report, we decided to look at the Geisha variety grown anywhere outside of Panama. We received Geishas produced in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Brazil, Mexico, and Taiwan — nearly 100 samples, all told. Does the Geisha variety fare in other growing regions as well as it does in tried-and-true Panama?

Sorting Geisha cherries at Acacia Hills Farm in Tanzania. Courtesy of Chromatic Coffee.

Geisha’s increasing desirability for producers makes sense: Geisha is low-yielding and challenging to grow, but farmers can earn a lot more per finished pound than they can for almost any other variety. Trends in consumer demand, which largely determine producers’ inclinations, are more complicated. It seems that the trend is not necessarily toward the Geisha variety, exclusively, but more toward differentiation from the norm, which can take the form of varietal distinctions but may encompass experimental processing methods, as well (something we’ll touch on in a bit).

The people who love Geisha fall into two camps: those who recognize and appreciate its inherently compelling characteristics but only spring for it on special occasions, and those who are obsessed with it, spending whatever they must to stay in constant supply of the Champagne of coffee. These camps, however, cannot agree on how to spell it.

A Rose By Any Other Spelling

Is it “Geisha” or “Gesha?” That depends on who you ask. While there is no hard and fast rule, Panama producers tend to use Geisha because the Petersons found documentation from the British Consulate, written in 1936, that use this spelling, claiming that this variety of Arabica was discovered near “Geisha Mountain” in Ethiopia. However, there doesn’t seem to be any such place, and African producers tend to use the Gesha spelling, given that the name of the forest where the variety most likely originated is Gori Gesha, suggesting that “Geisha” is a misspelling. Both spellings are acceptable nowadays, and we at Coffee Review prefer Geisha for general use, but we use the Gesha spelling when a producer or roaster of a coffee we are reviewing uses it. We tend to see “Geishas” from Panama, “Geshas” from Africa, and no real consistency among other origins.

Geisha coffees drying on raised beds at Acacia Hills Coffee in Tanzania. Courtesy of Chromatic Coffee.

The most unfortunate consequence of the use of the “Geisha” spelling is its crossover with the word in Japanese culture, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the coffee variety. A handful of unscrupulous marketers have chosen to misappropriate the term with illustrations that falsely evoke Japanese culture, but these are few and far between.

Now that we’ve settled the spelling question, if only by embracing its ambiguity, what about the coffees themselves?

Nine Non-Panama Geishas

We cupped 98 coffees for this report, and scores ranged from 84-96. A full 65%, or 64 coffees, scored 90 or above, a very impressive showing. What is it about the Geisha variety of Arabica that makes it tend toward excellence? Geisha is tricky to grow. It is fairly disease-resistant but requires lots of attention; root systems are not as sturdy as most varieties of Arabica, and because of their foliar structure, photosynthesis is not as efficient. This means a lower volume of fruit but more concentration (just as in vineyards whose canopy styles privilege quality over volume). This is one reason Geisha can command such a high price. Another reason is its generally striking sensory character. A third reason is, well, people seem willing to pay extra for its relative rarity, what they perceive to be its “exoticism.”

The “exotic” is a problematic concept, both geo-politically and culturally, and we avoid the term not only because it’s a form of “othering” but also because it’s really no longer true. Geisha is grown just about everywhere in the world where soils and altitudes are conducive to growing coffee.

What was so revealing about this report cupping is that we turned up Geishas from six countries outside of Panama that scored between 93 and 96, I daresay this is as impressive a top nine as we might find in an all-Panama Geisha cupping.

Two samples scored 96, a Colombia and a Guatemala, the former from San Diego’s always-impressive Bird Rock, and the latter from Taiwan rock-star roaster Kakalove. The Bird Rock Colombia La Siria Geisha, produced by Anibal Burban, was processed by the traditional washed method. It is complex and lyrically fruit-toned, displaying notes of pluot, cocoa nib, Meyer lemon zest, star jasmine and pistachio in aroma and cup. Kakalove’s Guatemala Santa Felisa Wild Yeast Natural Gesha is fermented in the whole fruit with the addition of wild yeasts (borrowing a page from vinicultural trends), resulting in what is, essentially, a fermented natural. The cup is playfully intricate and tropical. Think lychee, macadamia nut, pink grapefruit zest, cocoa nib and plumeria.

Colombia’s Cafe Granja La Esperanza Las Margaritas Farm. Courtesy of PT’s Coffee Roasting Co.

Two coffees we rated 95 are just as compelling in their nuance and complexity. Kansas City-based PT’s Coffee submitted a Colombia Granja La Esperanza Las Margaritas Gesha Honey, whose producer is world-renowned for successful high-altitude washed coffees. The Herrera brothers, Rigoberto and Luis, have carried on their family’s traditions and extended them into the realm of experimental processing. This coffee has notes of strawberry-guava, cocoa nib, wild honey, marjoram and lilac. Chromatic Coffee’s Tanzania Acacia Hills Gesha Peaberry (note the African spelling of “Gesha”) offers a richly sweet-savory counterpoint, with notes of blackberry jam, toffee, lavender, spearmint, fresh-cut cedar — a bit like a great Kenya on steroids.

Distinguished coffees from Colombia, Peru and Costa Rica came in at 94: Bay Area-based Equator Coffee’s Colombia La Palma Y El Tucán Gesha Natural; Taiwan-based GK Coffee’s Peru Yanesha Geisha Washed Anaerobic; and Connecticut-based Willoughby Coffee’s Costa Rica La Rejolla Washed Geisha.

Rounding out the field are two 93-scoring Geishas roasted in Taiwan: Omine Coffee’s Guatemala Geisha and Wuguo’s Ethiopia Washed Micro-Anaerobic Geisha.

Roaster Yoyo Guo at Taipei-based Wuguo Cafe. Courtesy of Wuguo.

Processing Experiments and Classic Profiles

One might ask, if Geisha is such an impressive green coffee when processed using the classic washed and now-classic natural methods, why one would want to apply newer, profile-altering processing techniques to it? Wouldn’t there be more incentive to showcase the classic Geisha aromatics and flavors via proven, familiar processing techniques? Of the nine coffees we review here, three are washed, three are sun-dried naturals, and three offer experimental twists on these methods.

Just as farmers throughout coffeelands have planted Geisha to differentiate their offerings and present consumers with novel cup profiles, they have experimented with unusual processing methods for the same reason – to add value to their coffees and provide another sensory journey for consumers. So, just as Geisha lovers fall into camps by degree of their level of obsession with the variety, coffee drinkers tend toward one of several personalities: classic or creative.

I happen to be someone who enjoys the morning ritual of a classic cup (give me a great Kenya or washed Ethiopia any day of the week), though I like my wild, sometimes even funky, forays in the afternoon where I’m going more for sensory exploration and a brain break than Proustian comfort, whereas many friends always want to wake up to a sensory surprise, and the variations on profile created by anaerobic processing (coffees fermented in low-oxygen environments) certainly provide that. (See our May 2021 report Fun with Ferment: Anaerobically Processed Coffees. It remains to be seen how far producers will go with applying profile-altering experiments to the already different and deservedly venerated Geisha.

What Roasters Think About The Geisha Phenomenon

Barry Levine, of Willoughby’s Coffee, has been cupping Geishas from their first appearance on the coffee scene. He says, “For the first decade of Geisha production, the flavors were really perceived as novel. As more gets produced, both in Panama and now in many other countries, the novelty is less but the variety has developed a fan base, most notably in Asia. Some cafes there sell nothing but Geisha. For farmers, the motivation is a love of coffee quality and a chance to earn significantly more money for their work.”

Equator’s Ted Stachura loves Geisha simply for its unmistakability. He says, “The sweet floral aromatic quality that comes across in the best examples of Geisha is like few other coffees in the world.” But Hiver van Geenhoven, of Chromatic Coffee, is curious about the craze. He says, “It honestly surprises me that so many producers would pursue Geisha, considering how relatively low the yields are. It’s a significant sacrifice of quantity on their end, but for many, it’s worth it to chase the high prices and prestige of the darling of the specialty coffee world.” He adds, “I’ve seen tea enthusiasts convert to coffee because of Geishas. I’ve seen looks of surprise as people experience the layered flavors changing as the beverage cools, revealing unexpectedly complex and shifting tonalities and textures, which only continue to deepen, thicken, and intensify.”

GK Coffee’s Gary Liao says that some coffee drinkers in Taiwan want a Geisha option 365 days a year. And he welcomes the greater affordability of Geishas from countries other than Panama because it allows his customers to enjoy a kind of everyday luxury.

Roaster Gary Liao of GK Coffee in Yilan, Taiwan. Courtesy of GK Coffee.

And while this report is timed perfectly for the holiday season, when coffee lovers are more likely to feel spendy, these nine exemplars of Geisha grown outside of Panama remind us that the world of coffee offers both extravagance and relative access.

The post Our Love Affair with Geisha — It’s Not Just a Panama Thing Anymore appeared first on Coffee Review.

Transporting processed coffee to storage in the Kiambu growing region of Kenya. Photo courtesy of Caesar Tu.

What makes a coffee taste like it does? Many factors go into what you ultimately experience in your morning cup.

First, there’s the tree variety that produces the coffee. For specialty coffees, the varieties in question are, with rare exceptions, of the Arabica species, and there are hundreds of possibilities. Then, there’s the place in which the tree is grown — the coffee’s terroir. (There is no direct translation into English of this French word, which refers to the holistic environment in which a plant is grown, including the specific soil type, weather, altitude, and other factors.) Once the ripe coffee cherries are picked, processing is the next big x-factor. While processing experiments are all the rage in specialty coffee right now, we’ll be focusing on the classic washed method here. There are enough variations on this one method to start a conversation about the influence of processing decisions on a coffee’s final product. With the exception of the crucial final step of brewing, the last major influence on a coffee’s journey to your cup is roasting, and each of the coffees featured in this month’s report have been expertly roasted, albeit subject to different roast profiles.

For this month’s report, we re-visited the coffees of Kenya, cupping 65 samples from roasters across the U.S, Canada and Taiwan. The top-scoring 11 reviewed here rated 94-95, a very impressive showing, and 19 more scored 90 or higher, meaning that roughly half of the coffees submitted scored 90 or above. In part, this success reflects the excellence and consistency for which Kenya coffees are known. It also may speak to an unusually high-quality crop out of Kenya this year, or overall skillful lot selection by importers and roasters.

Sorting fresh cherry at the Kibirigwi Co-op in Kenya’s Kirinyaga District. Photo courtesy of Klatch Coffee.

So, again, let’s consider the question — what makes a coffee taste like it does — specifically through the lens of coffees from Kenya, in particular the 11 we review this month. Kenya, as a coffee-producing origin, is a good case-in-point for an exploration of the multitude of factors that influence cup profile because, as many experienced coffee drinkers know, good Kenya coffees often display recognizable, consistent distinctions from coffees of other origins. A Kenya is frequently recognizable on a blind table, sometimes even by aroma alone.

Kenya Tree Varieties

One factor that helps distinguish Kenya coffees from those of other origins is the classic varieties of Arabica that have long dominated production: SL28 and SL34. SL stands for Scott Agricultural Laboratories, established by the British colonial government in Kenya in 1922. Both SL28 and SL34 were selections made by the Scott Labs between 1935 and 1939, primarily and initially on the basis of drought-resistance. Recent genetic research shows SL28 as Bourbon-related and SL34 as Typica-related.

SL28 is the variety that is most often associated with the classic aromas and flavors of Kenya coffees. Think dark berries — the most common dead ringer is black currant notes, but SL28 can also evoke blackberry, raspberry and other jammy berries — and sometimes umami-laden ripe tomatoes, which can add a complex savory tone. SL28 also tends to have strikingly bright, juicy acidity that contributes complexity and balance to the cup when juxtaposed with deep fruit-sweetness.

Weighing just-picked coffee cherry. Photo courtesy of Kakalove Cafe.

SL34, while not as dynamic as SL28, typically offers citrusy acidity and a full body. It usually shows up mixed with SL28 in Kenya-grown coffees.

The Kenya Hybrid Controversy

One plot twist in the Kenya coffee narrative is the increased plantings of disease-resistant hybrid varieties that may alter the distinctive Kenya cup. Two coffee fungus diseases, leaf rust and coffee berry disease (CBD), have been particularly destructive in Kenya over recent decades – Kenya lost 50% of its coffee crop to CBD in 1968. Ruiru 11, introduced by Kenya coffee authorities in the 1980s, resists both diseases, particular CBD, and is high-yielding and compact-growing. It is a complex cross of several varieties, among them SL28 and SL34 for cup quality and Hibrido di Timor (HdT), itself a natural cross between Arabica and Robusta, for disease resistance. However, its cup character has proven to be controversial.  Many cuppers claim that the Robusta influence appears in the cup, flattening the contributions of the SL 28 and SL34.

In 2010, Batian arrived on the scene. It is a single-tree selection from the fifth generation of Ruiru 11 stock, chosen for its large tree size (similar to SL28 and SL34) and superior cup quality. It is resistant to the same diseases as Ruiru 11. The promise of the Batian cup is difficult to assess at this point and at this distance, although those few samples that claim to be pure Batian that we have cupped at Coffee Review maintained the savory depth but not the juicy sweet-brightness of SL28.

Turning drying coffee in Kiambu, Kenya. Photo courtesy of Kakalove Cafe.

And whether or not the presence of Ruiru 11 and Batian is contributing to a much-feared dumbing down of the Kenya cup is difficult to assess from this distance because almost all lots of Kenya that reach markets comprise a mix of varieties, sometimes only SL28 and SL34, but often some of the new hybrid varieties as well. If there is erosion of Kenya distinction due to this shifting mix of varieties it would be difficult to confirm based on the brilliance of some of this month’s 95- and 94-rated samples that include at least some Batian and Ruiru 11 in the variety mix reported by importers.

Kenya Terroir and Kenya Acidity

Most of the prime coffee-growing terrain in Kenya is at high elevations, from 1,400 meters to 2,000 meters (4,600 to 6,600 feet) above sea level. Night temperatures are cool and trees are stressed, encouraging slow bean development and potentially increasing bean density and, presumably, cup complexity.

The aspect of Kenya terroir that has attracted the most speculation is the mineral-rich volcanic loam on the high volcanic plateaus around Mt. Kenya and the foothills of the Aberdare Range where classic Kenyas are grown, and its possible relationship to Kenya coffees’ high-toned, often “sparkling,” acidity.

Acids that most contribute to cup character are all organic – produced by the plant itself – with the exception of phosphoric acid, which is inorganic and comes from the soil. Apparently, soils in the classic Kenya growing regions are rich in phosphoric acid. Phosphoric acid is added to sodas to brighten flavor and make them more tangy, leading to the assumption that phosphoric-rich soils contribute to the vibrancy of acidity in the best Kenyas.

In fact, the acidy sensation of Kenyas is complex and varied:  sometimes bright and light-footed, sometimes citrusy, sometimes winey (or tannic). What sets Kenya apart from most specialty producing origins is not just the quality of its coffees’ acidity but its clarity. In the best examples, including all 11 of the coffees we review here, the various experiences of acidity are all expressive and clear.

It’s difficult to drill down to the influence of soil type in specific coffee-growing regions as compared with others, as less effort has been put into identifying regional distinctions in soil (and terroir, more generally) in the coffee industry than in the world of wine, where terroir is a chief marketing distinction about which much research is conducted, down to the sun’s angle on each vineyard slope.

Regional Distinctions

The three regions represented by the 11 coffees we review here, however, are well-known and fairly consistent in their cup presentation: Nyeri, Kiambu and Kirinyaga, which form a triangle at the base of Mt. Kenya. Coffees grown in the Nyeri region tend to be bright, sweetly tart (sometimes tropical) and high-toned, while Kirinyagas are often more floral-driven and sometimes sweetly savory. Kiambu County coffees run the gamut from round and cocoa-toned to berry-driven and citrusy, depending on varieties selected.

Kenya’s Meticulous Grading and Processing Methods

While the cherries’ ripeness at picking is perhaps the most important determinant of cup quality, Kenya’s green processing and grading is consistently painstaking.

Drying coffee on raised beds in the Kiambu growing region of Kenya. Photo courtesy of Pebble Coffee.

Kenya is particularly famous for its meticulous washing process, which involves pulping (skin removal), then fermenting the beans for 12 to 24 hours before rinsing and soaking them again overnight in fresh water. The so-called “Kenya process” or double-soak is often cited as a contribution to the unique character of Kenya coffee, although the details of its impact have not been systematically studied.

After the green coffee has been dried and rested, it is hulled and subjected to mechanical and electronic grading, which removes imperfect or defective beans and separates beans by size. In the Kenya system, only large screen 18 beans are classified as AA, while screen 16s are labeled as AB. These size distinctions are not directly correlated with quality but rather with consistency. Some roasters may prefer AB, just as some lovers of maple syrup prefer grade B to grade A. It is a matter of specific coffee lot and personal preference.

Kenya’s Auction System

Instituted in 1934 and still held at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange, the government-run Kenya coffee auction is often cited as another reason Kenya coffees excel in quality and distinction. Auction systems exist, or have existed, in other East African coffee countries, but the Kenya system is the most influential and admired. Cooperatives submit lots of coffee to the Nairobi Coffee Exchange, and samples of these lots are made available to licensed dealers who will, 12 days later, have an opportunity to bid on them on either their own behalf or on behalf of their customers, typically roasters or importers.

The logic of this auction system, which ties price discovery to cup quality and character, has been much praised in the coffee world, but in recent times the auction has come under fire both by cooperatives and specialty green-coffee buyers. The cooperatives claim its complications add too much cost to the coffee, money that never makes it back to them, while specialty coffee buyers would rather buy directly from cooperatives for reasons of traceability and partnership.

Consequently, in 2006, the Kenyan government relaxed the rules that required all coffees to be sold through auction and began licensing independent marketing agents who can bypass the auction and trade on the open market. This step also has created controversy, however, and the Kenya trading system as a whole continues in a process of re-examination.

Riches Liao of DoDo Kaffa in Taipei. Photo courtesy of DoDo Kaffa.

The 11 Kenyas Reviewed

These are some of the most delicious coffees we’ve tasted all year, all rated at 94 or 95 Five come from roasters in Taiwan, five from roasters in the U.S., and one from a roaster in Toronto, Canada. While there is much nuance and range — from fruit-toned and juicy to deep and chocolaty, to savory and complex — each offers an element of the “classic” Kenya cup profile so many of us love.

The post The Joy of Kenya, Classic Coffee-Producing Origin appeared first on Coffee Review.

To great degree, we succeeded. We managed to source recently arrived samples from many of El Salvador’s finest, most celebrated farms and suppliers. Not all of them, but a good cross-section. Nevertheless, we still were a bit disappointed, even by the new crop samples.

Still in Crisis

El Salvador suffered terribly from the devastating epidemic of coffee leaf rust disease that struck much of Latin America starting in 2012. Overall coffee production in El Salvador fell by an extraordinary 60 percent from 2012 to 2014. The destructive impact on coffee, and on the people who grow it, was incalculable. El Salvador especially suffered because it was, for many years, one of the darlings of high-end coffee, with large plantings of the distinctive varieties Bourbon and Pacamara, both celebrated for their exceptional cup profiles — but both, unfortunately, also susceptible to leaf rust disease and, consequently, very hard hit by the 2012 epidemic. By contrast, in neighboring Honduras, most fields had been planted with disease-resistant interspecific hybrids chosen more for their resistance to disease than for their distinctive cup character. During the two years that El Salvador’s vulnerable production plummeted, coffee production in Honduras increased (although that increase has recently leveled off).

Coffee leaf rust in El Salvador. Courtesy of Jason Sarley.

But total production in El Salvador has been recovering, and we felt that 2019 would be a good year to check in again on El Salvador coffees and hopefully celebrate signs of recovery of this exceptional origin. But perhaps our timing was premature here, too. We did receive nearly 25 samples of the sweet-savory, big-beaned Pacamara variety, one of El Salvador’s coffee treasures, and nearly 10 samples from trees of the great heirloom Bourbon variety that once produced up to 80% of El Salvador’s coffee. But, in general, most of the samples even from these exceptional varieties rated in the 87 to 89 range: solid, pleasing coffees but either a bit short in energy and excitement on one hand, or persuasive balance and elegance on the other.

Fruit of the Pacamara variety of Arabica, Finca Las Mercedes, El Salvador. Courtesy of Jason Sarley.

We have only sketchy reports of bad weather disrupting the flowering and fruiting cycle this crop year. But the record is clear for previous years: first the rust epidemic, then erratic weather patterns almost certainly related to global warming. Rains sometimes come early, which makes the trees flower, but then the rains stop and things dry up. Between climate change and the ongoing threat of the rust disease, yields have plummeted even on the best-managed farms. The latest blow is all-time-low benchmark prices for standard-quality Arabica coffee. According to a 2018 USDA report on the El Salvador coffee sector, the country has lost an estimated 40,000 coffee jobs since the onset of the rust epidemic, contributing to crime, social unrest, and the wave of migration north. The Migration Policy Institute reports that nearly 20% of El Salvador’s population now lives in the United States.

Coffee growing on the hillside at Finca Himalaya in El Salvador. Courtesy of Jason Sarley.

A friend of mine, who operates a small El Salvador farm, summarizes the situation: “The challenges that [El Salvador] growers face are related to change in climate and to drops in market prices that offer negative revenue stream to many growers. Climate change means that the level of quality once associated with a particular elevation may change. Hence more fertilizer and silicon needed to maintain quality. Climate change also means that fungus, plants, and animals malevolent to agricultural crops have increasingly better purchase at elevations once at least somewhat daunting to them. Negative revenue streams mean abandoned farms. Abandoned farms create unmitigated breeding grounds for these adversaries, often adjacent to or surrounding active cafetals. To make matters worse, as more and more agricultural workers are displaced, rural crime levels rise noticeably, in both frequency and in the level of violence.”

The Distinctive Exceptions

Despite all of these daunting challenges, some exceptional coffees came our way, distinguished both by their quality as well as their originality. Seven of those coffees, rated from 91 to 94, are reviewed here.

The Plat Coffee El Salvador, top-rated at 94, is a poised and complete example of wet-processed Bourbon character, sweetly lavish in fruit and floral aromatics, yet crisp with nut and dry chocolate — a throwback, perhaps, to great wet-processed El Salvador Bourbons of years past. The 93-rated PT’s Coffee La Avila SL28 El Salvador is also a wet-processed coffee, but from trees of the Bourbon-related SL28 variety famous for its contribution to the great coffee tradition of Kenya. Here the nut-toned, sweet-savory character leads into the cup, but just behind and around it a deep, layered complexity emerges, gently zesty and vivid.

The Bourbon variety of Arabica. Courtesy of Jason Sarley.

The pattern of a savory-leaning, nut-toned character balanced and lifted by fruit or floral sweetness was characteristic also of the remaining five coffees reviewed here. In the case of the wet-processed JBC Talquezar El Salvador (92), the contrast was both deeply resonant and delicate. With the natural- or dry-processed samples like the Willoughby’s Finca Kilimanjaro (92) and the Duluth José Flores Pacamara Natural (91), the nut-toned tendency was a bit more bitter than in the wet-processed samples, but the balancing fruit was also sweeter and more explicit. The Deeper Roots Mario Aguilar El Salvador (a wet-processed Pacamara, 91) displayed a nicely balanced bittersweet nut (we called it candied walnut) with a pronounced dark chocolate helped along by a slight touch of roast influence. Finally, the Dinwei Café Finca San Antonio El Salvador (92) is a honey-processed coffee produced from trees of the celebrated Geisha variety, newly introduced to El Salvador. It displayed a mild but gently original version of the cocoa-and-flowers Geisha genius.

The Uncertain March of the Naturals

Of the 54 coffees we tested, almost half were natural-processed (dried in the whole fruit), and another 25% were honey-processed (skin removed, but dried in all or part of the fruit flesh or pulp). This is a complete turnaround in processing method for El Salvador. Until just a few years ago, the standard processing method for fine coffee in El Salvador, as well as in most parts of the world, was the washed or wet method, in which the skin and sweet fruit pulp is immediately stripped from the seeds or beans before they are dried, preventing the fruit pulp from fermenting or going musty during drying, potentially tainting the cup. If everything is done right during wet processing, the result is usually a relatively bright, vivacious cup, with clean fruit notes and distinct florals.

Honey-processed drying at Finca Las Mercedes, El Salvador. Courtesy of Jason Sarley.

Starting with the success of Starbucks’ Sherkina Sundried Sidamo in 2005, the specialty community began to discover the possibilities and pleasures offered by drying the coffee in the entire fruit: the natural or dry method. When it works, the natural process adds a fruity, juicy, often alcohol-tinged sweetness to the cup that has seduced a generation of roasters and coffee drinkers, including me. When it doesn’t work, however, which can happen because of the long period of drying inside the fruit in often less than ideal conditions, the fruit either over-ferments, producing a range of notes from vaguely rotten to mulchy, or stays relatively clean-tasting but dries out and encourages a nut- or wood-dominated cup.

A Lot of Naturals, Not a Whole Lot of Fruit

Twenty-four of the fifty-four coffees we tested for this report were natural-processed, and of those 24, none quite fit the cleanly lush yet balanced, opulently fruit-forward style of natural many consumers look for, and that we tend to give high ratings to on Coffee Review. True, two naturals we review here, the Willoughby’s Finca Kilimanjaro and the Duluth José Flores Natural, did show some quietly vibrant natural fruit. Some of the other naturals we tested were fruit-forward yet disturbingly uneven. But the main issue with most of the naturals we tested was a nut-toned, woody simplicity.

Aida Battle and Gabriela Flores of Finca Kilimanjaro. Courtesy of Jason Sarley.

Perhaps the weather did not cooperate during drying, or the best naturals didn’t make it to roasters in time for our report. Some of the better-known El Salvador farms are established masters of the natural method, but possibly the great majority of El Salvador producers are just learning about the challenges of the newly fashionable natural method. Certainly there are profound advantages to the producer with the natural method: no need to clean fermentation and wash water fouled during processing, less fussy equipment to maintain, and the implicit promise to the buyer that the coffee is different or exciting — not the same-old Central America washed cup. If producers find that they are not getting enough money to cover cost of production for standard wet-processed coffees, why not roll the dice and go for specialty prices by offering something different?

Washed Coffees Dominate at the Top

Nevertheless, the traditional washed samples we tested impressed us more overall than the natural or honey samples. Of the samples we rated 90 or higher, 60% were wet-processed, 30% were natural-processed and 10% were honey-processed. Whereas for the cupping as a whole, 35% of the tested samples were wet-processed, 44% were natural and 26% honey.

Refining Naturals

What has to happen now, it seems to me, is that industry professionals need to begin to more mindfully distinguish between successful naturals and less successful naturals, more successful experiments and less successful experiments, and develop criteria that can be translated into practical protocols for achieving sensory success when preparing such alternative-method coffees at the farm or mill. These protocols appear to exist already at the individual farm level in Central America, but perhaps the word needs to be gotten out more widely. Certainly, coffees like many of the naturals we tested these past few weeks, dominated by bittersweetness with minimal compensating fruit or chocolate, will not charm consumers for very long.

But the best of this year’s El Salvadors were quite good, and much of the 2019 crop is just arriving at roasters. Most likely, more soaring wet-processed Bourbons and rich, resonant, fruit-nuanced natural Pacamaras will surface at specialty roasters this summer and fall. Look for them.

And stick with El Salvador generally, just as U.S. coffee roasters appear to be doing. Support those legislators who want us to deal forcefully with global warming, and who might be willing to back efforts to invest more in agriculture and development in Central America to keep people at home rather than to spend enormous sums to build a wall at the border to keep them out once they are displaced and suffering.

The post El Salvador Coffees 2019: Pacamaras, Bourbons and Change appeared first on Coffee Review.

Yellow Pacamara from Mierisch’s Finca La Huella after processing. Courtesy of Kakalove Cafe.

For this month’s tasting report, we decided to take a closer look at these curious varieties. We asked roasters to send in their favorite “big-bean” coffees, and received 75 samples in all. The vast majority were Pacamaras, and it is this variety that fared best in our cupping (some theories about why below). We review the top nine coffees here, eight of which are Pacamaras, along with one impressive Maragogipe.

A Brief History of Big Beans

Maragogipe, also known as “elephant bean,” was discovered growing in a field near the town of Maragogipe in Bahia, Brazil in the late 19th century. It never took off as a single-origin coffee because, though it adapts well to colder climates, it’s porous and difficult to roast and tends to be woody and flat in the cup. While it originated in Brazil, it’s now grown most widely throughout Central America, though in small quantities. Although its main appeal may be the novelty of its gigantic beans, when grown and processed carefully and roasted sensitively, it can deliver a subtly unique sensory profile that leans toward the sweet-savory.

Pacamara, a hybrid of Pacas and Maragogipe, was the culmination of 30 years of research in El Salvador. Pacas, named after the family that discovered this natural mutation of the highly regarded Bourbon variety on their farm in 1956, is a short, hearty tree that is resilient to wind and climate fluctuations, and tends to produce high yields. Pacamara retains the large beans of the Maragogipe but typically produces a deeper, more complex cup. Pacamara was officially rolled out by the Salvadoran Institute for Coffee Research (ISIC) in the 1980s.

Yellow Pacamara trees growing at Mierisch’s Finca La Huella in Nicaragua. Courtesy of Small Eyes Cafe.

Maracaturra, a hybrid of Maragogipe and Caturra, was developed in Nicaragua by Byron Corrales at Finca Los Pinos, an organic-certified and biodynamic coffee farm. Like Pacas, Caturra is a compact-growing, high-yielding variety that grows well throughout Central America. The Maracaturra was originally offered only through Thanksgiving Coffee, a roaster in Fort Bragg, California known for its pioneering work in sustainability, but it is now also grown in Guatemala and El Salvador and available to consumers by way of a number of specialty coffee roasters in the U.S. and Asia.

On the Cupping Table

Whenever we discover that a coffee we’ve blind-cupped is a Pacamara, Maragogipe or Maracaturra, our interest is piqued. The three of us who regularly cup together have had a running discussion for some time about these big beans, attempting to determine whether they share a common character or overlapping sensory descriptors.

One category of sensation that does often turn up is savory, a basic taste associated with brothy depth. But once we identify it, the questions follow. In a particular sample, is “savory” a positive? (The short answer for us is yes, when it’s juxtaposed with sweetness.) Is the savory element associated with a spice note, an earth-toned accent, an aroma or flavor akin to pipe tobacco? An especially aromatic wood? Perhaps even a non-dessert food or a bittersweet flower? How about fine musk? These are all distinct possibilities when cupping these big-bean varieties.

Barrington Coffee’s flavor wheel for its Guatemala Pacamara Los Cuxinales. Courtesy of Barrington Coffee.

The samples we received for this report were far more diverse than suggested by our intermittent experience of these coffees over the last few years. Our expectations were not so much contradicted, as enlarged in often surprising ways. The nine coffees we review here, ranging in score from 92-95, are, at turns, sweetly savory, sweet-tart, bittersweet, and spice-toned. All are vibrant and engaging, with nuances in acidity and mouthfeel.

The Top-Scoring Coffees

While about half of the samples submitted scored a respectable 90-91 or higher, a quarter scored between 84 and 89, and the remaining quarter languished in the 80-83 range, close to falling out of the specialty category entirely. In other words, these big-bean coffees are all over the map from a green-quality and roasting perspective. But the good coffees are very good. And in this cupping, the Pacamara coffees were far and away the most impressive.

Only one non-Pacamara landed in the top nine, the 94-scoring Guatemala La Providencia Maragogype (an alternative spelling to Maragogipe) from Bird Rock Coffee Roasters in San Diego. President and director of coffee Jeff Taylor says that, when this coffee showed up on his table, he was surprised to learn it was a Maragogipe, a variety he’d always pigeonholed as papery and flat. In contrast, this La Providencia is an exciting paradox: high-toned yet deep, with both sweet (wisteria) and bitter-leaning (hops) floral notes.

Even when sourced successfully, these large-beaned varieties present challenges for roasters. Tom Chuang, owner-roaster of Small Eyes Cafe, a nano-roaster in Taiwan, whose Nicaragua Mierisch Yellow Pacamara Honey rated 93, says that the big beans are notoriously difficult to roast because of their unusual size and porousness.

Tom Chuang, of Small Eyes Cafe, at his roastery in Yilan, Taiwan. Courtesy of Small Eyes Cafe.

Ted Stachura, director of coffee at Equator Coffee (El Salvador Finca Himalaya Pacamara, 92) thinks that the reason Pacamara is cupping better than the other varieties, in general, is because “specialty coffee farmers (especially in El Salvador) have been focusing on this variety for many years now and seem to have dialed in the production process in a way that they haven’t with other big-bean types.”

A second high-scoring El Salvador Pacamara, a black-honey processed Finca El Cerro from Red Rooster Coffee Roasters (93), is cleanly fruit-toned with elegant roasted cacao nib underneath. Head roaster Tony Greatorex says the black honey process, involving drying the beans inside the sweet pulp of the coffee fruit, works well for Pacamara, a variety that can sometimes skew “more toward wild and savory than sweet.” “The black honey process,” he says, “emphasizes the sweetness potential and provides pleasing balance and depth.”

Red Rooster’s Pacamara Black Honey from El Salvador. Courtesy of Red Rooster Coffee.

The other Pacamaras we review here are from Guatemala and Nicaragua. The highest-rated coffee in this report is from Fumi Coffee in Taiwan: a natural-processed Guatemala Finca La Hermosa rated 95. Owner-roaster Yu Chih Hao compares this particular Pacamara to Gesha (also spelled Geisha), one of the most expensive coffees in the world. Like Gesha, Pacamara is relatively rare, and he says, “The high altitude at which this coffee was grown gives it a citrusy acidity somewhat like Gesha that adds complexity to the cup.”

Four additional Pacamaras scored 93, two from Guatemala and two from Nicaragua. Augie’s Guatemala Finca Insul is delicate and sweetly spice-toned, while Barrington’s Guatemala Finca Cuxinales impresses with a complex bittersweet balance. Both are washed-process coffees that foreground rich floral tones.

In the roastery at Augie’s in Redlands, California. Courtesy of Augie’s.

Two Nicaraguas, also rated 93, represent the other end of the sensory spectrum, with sweet-tart fruits leading the way, not surprisingly, as one is natural-processed (dried in the fruit), and the other honey-processed (dried in the fruit pulp after the skins were removed). Kakalove Cafe‘s Mierisch Yellow Pacamara Honey (the same green coffee submitted by Small Eyes Cafe, above), combines richly tart tamarind notes with maple syrup and spice tones akin to pink peppercorn and narcissus. And Toronto roaster Hale Coffee Company‘s Finca La Benedicion Natural centers around a cleanly sweet fruit ferment redolent of raspberry liqueur. The ballast here is creamy cashew butter and spicy sandalwood.

If this sampling of coffees is representative, it seems that the Pacamara is potentially quite versatile in its performance across a range processing methods, including washed, natural and variations on honey.

The Big Bean Appeal

What’s the chief appeal of big-bean varieties for consumers? The novelty of the large bean size? The often distinctive cup profile? Perhaps the enigmatic variety names?

Bird Rock’s Maritza Suarez-Taylor, director of quality control, says that the bean size is definitely intriguing for her customers. She adds that, “The relative scarcity of these coffees also provides an opportunity for us to educate people about new varieties.”

Taiwan roasters Huang and Yu Chih Hao agree that the novelty of bean size is an attraction, but rarity is an even more important factor in the Asian market. Their customers are drawn to coffees not easily found elsewhere. Kakalove’s Caesar Tu, a nano-roaster also based in Taiwan, says he has customers who think big beans are inherently better, but in fact he points out that Kakalove’s Yellow Pacamara has a bright acidity that only a certain kind of coffee drinker appreciates. He chose this coffee mainly for its cleanly fruit-forward presentation.

Barth Anderson, co-founder of Barrington Coffee Roasting, agrees. He likes his Cuxinales Guatemala for its tangy acidity, and he adds, “I hazard that the Bourbon roots of the Pacas portion of the Pacamara varietal add to its complexity and vibrancy.”

Barrington Coffee’s Barth Anderson at the cupping table. Courtesy of Barrington Coffee.

Stachura doesn’t think bean size is relevant to his customers, given that Equator’s bags are opaque. Still, he points out that the unfamiliar varietal nomenclature is bound to appeal to the adventurous.

Nevertheless, roasters East and West agree that cup quality and character are most important. We agree, though we acknowledge that the more savory-leaning among the coffees reviewed here may not appeal to all coffee drinkers. Their character may differ a little too dramatically from the more familiar coffee types—sweetly tart, roundly chocolaty, or juicily fruit-toned—we typically reward with high ratings. The sweet-savory structure and suggestions of spice, herb, pipe tobacco, aromatic wood or musk make them one version of what we call “caveat coffees,” coffees to which we assign high ratings, but with the implied caveat that their peculiar style of excellence may not please everyone.

We try to alert consumers to the caveats implied in various coffee styles through detailed reviews of individual coffees. Not all of the big-bean samples we tested were impressive, but the best, including the nine reviewed here, offered exceptional departures from the norm.

The post “Big-Bean” Coffee Varieties: Novelty, Scarcity, and Atypical Sensory Pleasures appeared first on Coffee Review.

The fruit from the Caturra was quite pleasant: fresh, tartly sweet, juicy, clean. And the Gesha? It was just as juicy and fresh, though a bit sweeter, perhaps a bit more tart, but above all erupting with vibrant, complex floral-toned fruit notes. The difference could not have been more dramatic. The Caturra fruit was pleasing. The Gesha fruit was complex and disconcertingly delicious.

Gesha tree with ripe cherries. Courtesy of Adam Overton.

With meticulous fruit removal and drying and a good light-to-medium roast, we have learned that that Gesha deliciousness can carry right through into the cup, producing intricately layered flowers, from lavender to lilac, crisp, floral-toned cocoa, bright citrus, aromatic sandalwood. It was this unprecedented cornucopia of aromatics that electrified the jury at the famous 2004 Best of Panama green coffee competition, when Gesha first announced its presence to the specialty coffee world. A pure, unmixed lot of Gesha from trees found growing on the Peterson family’s Hacienda La Esmeralda attracted the highest ratings ever awarded in a green coffee competition, and eventually sold for the highest price ever paid per pound for an unroasted coffee not excreted from the intestinal tract of an animal.

Sampling Gesha Coffees 13 Years Later

The emergence of Gesha is certainly one of the more electrifying stories of 21^st century coffee history. We revisit that story very briefly here, but also ask, since its debut as the world’s most unique-cupping, rarest and certainly most expensive coffee, where does the Gesha phenomenon situate now? How does Gesha look in 2017 from the point of view of an aficionado consumer, now that this very rare variety has been planted in other places and other fields, including re-establishment close to its original home in the forests of western Ethiopia? Does it still taste distinctive? Does it continue to match up to its reputation? What Gesha experiences are available to the consumer, from what origins, and at what prices? To try to answer these questions, we tested 20 Geshas roasted by eight American, six East Asian, and one Canadian roasting company. Although this sampling was not as wide-ranging as we had hoped (we scheduled our story a little too early to capture some important late-arriving new-crop Geshas from Central America), it certainly offers interesting options for coffee splurges, plus gives some insight into the current situation of this history-making coffee variety.

Gesha and the Coffee Variety Question

Gesha is a variety or cultivar of the Coffea arabica species, just as Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay are varieties of the Vitus vinifera grape species. There are many varieties of Arabica, but they are, in fact, mostly quite similar in their genetic makeup, as well as in how they taste in the cup. Sensory distinctions among them are occasionally striking, but more often they are not. Most of the world’s Arabica varieties ultimately derive from a few plants from Yemen, where Europeans first found the coffee tree cultivated. Because the coffee plant is largely self-pollinating (an estimated 90% of coffee flowers are self-pollinated), dramatic mutations and spontaneous crosses are infrequent and the genetic diversity of Coffea arabica is consequently quite low.

The lush landscape of Gesha Village. Courtesy of Adam Overton.

In fact, most coffee varieties are so similar in cup character that, until the emergence of Gesha, the role variety plays in determining how coffee actually tastes in the cup was not universally acknowledged. Specialty coffee insiders long contended that variety is crucial to cup character, but coffee scientists and the commercial coffee industry were not convinced—often for good reason, given that many specialty coffee tasters failed to consistently distinguish among commonly grown varieties in blind testing.

Gesha the Game Changer

Gesha changed all of that. It didn’t change the fact that coffees from most commonplace varieties still taste quite similar to one another. But what it did was conclusively prove that at least one variety, Gesha, tasted dramatically different from most of the others. And, by the typical standards of coffee experts and insiders, it also tasted dramatically better—generally bigger-bodied, usually brighter, almost always much more complex and distinctive in aroma and flavor.

It also proved, quite conclusively, that the expanding upscale end of the specialty coffee world was quite willing to pay more for a coffee variety that tasted strikingly different and strikingly good. The record-breaking price paid for that first 2004 Hacienda Esmeralda Gesha was only the beginning.

Those Scandalous Gesha Prices

A couple of months ago a particularly admired lot of Gesha sold at the Best of Panama auction for $601.00 per pound, breaking all previous records. Contrast that $601.00 with the price a farmer might receive for a pound of decent, well prepared, but not particularly distinctive Arabica from ordinary varieties sold on the same day that record price was established: $1.32.

Weighing the day’s harvest at Gesha Village Farm. Courtesy of Adam Overton.

Of course most Geshas sell to roasters for prices far, far less than $601.00, and this month we review some samples that, given Gesha’s history, rarity and unique character, could even be considered values at the consumer level.

But even these “value” Geshas are still quite pricey compared to that green coffee sold for $1.32 on the same day, a price probably far too low to adequately support the farmer and family who produced it. If prices for Geshas are too high, they only help demonstrate that prices for most decent, respectable-quality coffees are too low, and the producers of that simple but ordinary $1.32 coffee continue to have their aspirations leveled and their livelihoods strangled by the world commodity system.

A Gesha for the People?

Nevertheless, the spectacular prices paid for Geshas have dovetailed with other developments to transform the coffee industry in complex and most likely positive ways. The Gesha phenomenon coincided with the emergence of the farmer-to-roaster practices called direct trade and the erupting market for tiny, ultra-high-market lots of very specifically described coffees, significantly raising the prestige of coffee as a high-end specialty beverage. And the high prices paid for Geshas have encouraged experiment and exploration by coffee producers. Today, farmers everywhere may separate lots of unusual-looking trees in the hope that the next Gesha may show up in one of their coffee fields. And the very value and intense character of the Gesha bean has led to more and more refined experiments in subtly maintaining or influencing flavor through variations in drying and fruit removal.

Finally, and perhaps most profoundly, the Gesha phenomenon has proven to coffee breeders and researchers that cup character does count when developing new coffee varieties. It is now clear that distinctive-tasting varieties are not simply a fantasy of snob coffee buyers (or coffee reviewers). They are real, at least real enough to provoke a coffee roaster to pay hundreds of dollars per pound for a green, unroasted coffee. Coinciding with the application of genetic analysis to coffee breeding, the Gesha phenomenon has influenced the direction of the groundbreaking new research initiatives of World Coffee Research aimed at developing sophisticated new hybrid varieties of Arabica that are not only robust and disease-resistant, but also distinctive, perhaps extraordinary, in cup character.

And, hopefully, less rare and less expensive. A Gesha for the People, perhaps.

Gesha Geography, Then and Now

The paradigm-changing Gesha that Price Peterson and his son and daughter brought to the Panama competition in 2004 came from plant material that we now understand was discovered in the forests of western Ethiopia, the original home of Coffea arabica, was then carried from there to East Africa, from there to Costa Rica, and finally to Panama and that famous field on the Peterson farm.

Elida Estate Gesha purchased at auction. Courtesy of Tamas Christman.

Today, 13 years after its rediscovery, where do we find Gesha growing? In many places, though its spread across the geography of the specialty coffee world is doubtless just beginning. Most Gesha continues to be produced in Panama, on expanded farms and fields of the Peterson family; on new farms organized specifically around growing Gesha, like Ninety Plus Gesha Estates; and on well-established farms that have added Gesha to their repertoire of varieties, like Carmen Estate, which produced this month’s top, 96-rated Geisha El Palomar from Dragonfly Roasters.

Arturo Aguirre, Jr. and Sr., cupping their Guatemala coffees. Courtesy of Arturo Aguirre.

Gesha production is also slowly establishing itself elsewhere in Central America and in Colombia. We recently reviewed two fine Geshas from Colombia, including the 94-rated La Palma y El Tucan Gesha from Bird Rock Coffee Roasters. Two excellent Geshas from Guatemala, both rated at 93, appear in this month’s reviews: The Willoughby’s Guatemala Legendary Gesha and the Ironclad Roasters’ Guatemala Acatenango Gesha.

The Prodigal Bean Comes Home

But perhaps the most noteworthy expansion of Gesha into the world of coffee production is not an expansion, but a return home. Gesha is now being farmed in the mountain forests of western Ethiopia, where the variety originated. In a project inspired by coffee educator and entrepreneur Willem Boot and carried to fruition by farmers Adam Overton and Rachel Samuel, superb Geshas are now being produced in western Ethiopia, close to where the variety was first discovered, produced from seed selected from trees growing wild in the nearby Gori Gesha forest. Gesha Village Estate offered its first crop at auction in 2017. Of the ten top-rated Geshas reviewed this month, five came from this new project.

Buying Those Pricey Gesha Coffees

So where does all of this leave the consumer?

(Again, a caveat on this month’s Gesha selection. The Geshas from Panama and some other Latin American origins were just arriving in roasters’ warehouses when we sourced our samples for this set of reviews, and some of the finest may not be represented here.)

Here are some observations about what we might learn from a consumer perspective from our tasting of 20 Geshas from the 2017 crop:

The very best Geshas remain great, distinctive, and alive with Geshaness. The eight coffees we rate at 94 or higher this month are all unmistakably and vividly Gesha in character. The two 93 coffees reviewed this month are also splendid coffees, though they perhaps embody a little less Gesha in their splendidness.

Unfortunately, it appears that it is possible to buy a Gesha and find that it is a good coffee, but not a particularly Gesha-like coffee. Hints for success in the hunt for a great Gesha might be: Buy from a smaller but well-established roaster, one known for quality. Look at the beans; most of them should be large and elongated. Buy from a roaster that specializes in Geshas or offers them regularly. (Mudhouse Coffee, for example, whose owners are partners in a Gesha farm in Panama. Or the very large San Francisco Bay Coffee, which outright owns a Gesha farm in Panama. Neither Dragonfly Coffee Roasters nor Willoughby’s Coffee & Tea specializes in Geshas, but both companies offer top Geshas regularly.) Buy a Gesha that has won a prize or was sold at special auction as a green coffee. (The ratings-topping Dragonfly Carmen Geisha El Palomar took fourth place in the Gesha Best of Panama competition and was sold in the subsequent auction. All of the top-rated Gesha Village Estate coffees we review this month were sold at auction by the farm.)

Or: If you want to buy the very finest, most expensive Geshas, move to Asia. East Asian consumers appear to have far fewer qualms about splurging on very distinguished, very expensive coffees like the best Geshas. Three of the top ten coffees reviewed here come from excellent Taiwanese roasters, and I suspect that the Panama Geshas have not yet reached Asia, or we would have seen even more submissions from Asian roasters. Of the 51 winning coffee lots sold in the recent Best of Panama green coffee auction (the majority of them Geshas), 37 went to roasters in Asia, seven to Australian roasters, and, yes, one to the United States—the 96-rated Dragonfly Carmen Geisha El Palomar that topped this month’s reviews.

The barista at Ho Soo Tsai in Taiwan brews a pourover Gesha coffee. Courtesy of Jeff Chang.

The roast and Geshas. It appears that a really fine Gesha can stand up to a tactful darker roast and still maintain character. Note that the highest-rated coffee in last month’s August 2017 report on darker roasts was a lovely 95-rated Colombia Gesha from Amavida Coffee & Tea, brought to a roast just at the edge of moderately dark. More persuasive evidence of Gesha’s versatility in darker-roast styles comes with this month’s 94-rated San Francisco Bay Panama Geisha, a very definite though skillfully executed dark roast that wraps inside its roasty heart a sweetly pungent but recognizable version of the Gesha aromatics.

However, if this month’s small sampling is any indication, beware of ultra-light roasts. Given how expensive Gesha is, roasters may be tempted to reduce weight loss during roasting by super-light-roasting their pricey Geshas. Of the 20 Geshas we tested, two were significantly under-roasted, one grotesquely so: It was all sweet wood and snow-peas rather than sandalwood and flowers.

Processing and Geshas. Geshas appear to do well when processed by either the classic washed or wet method (fruit removed before drying; usually a cleaner and brighter cup) or the natural or dry method (beans dried inside the fruit; usually a deeper and lusher cup). The main issue is whether the processing was done well, regardless of method.

Washing station at Gesha Village Farm. Courtesy of Adam Overton.

Price and Geshas. Let’s end with this one, the crinkly green elephant shuffling around the tasting table shedding high-denomination bills. Plainly, coffee from trees of the Gesha variety is expensive. Sticking with coffees with prices expressed in U.S. dollars, the least expensive coffees reviewed this month retail at $2.50 per dry ounce of beans, or about $1.25 per 8-fluid-ounce cup when brewed at home (the 94-rated, dark-roasted San Francisco Bay Panama Geisha and the 93-rated Ironclad Coffee Roasters Guatemala Acatenango Gesha).

Ironclad Roasters’ Guatemala Acatenango Gesha. Courtesy of Ryan O’Rourke.

The most expensive (again, among those with prices expressed in U.S. dollars): $9.38 per dry ounce of beans, or about $5.00 per 8-fluid-ounce cup (the 95-rated Mudhouse Gesha Village 1931, Lot 86). The highest-rated at 96, the Dragonfly Carmen Geisha El Palomar Best of Panama, comes in at $6.25 per dry ounce of beans, or around $3.00 per 8-ounce cup. The average appears to be about $5.94 per dry ounce, or about $3.00 per 8-fluid-ounce, home-brewed cup.

Admittedly, any myth of coffee as everyday luxury, the wine of the people, takes a big hit here. On the other hand, as we specialty coffee folk are endlessly fond of pointing out, three bucks for eight ounces of one the world’s greatest coffees is a bargain compared with the outlandish price one would need to pay for eight ounces of a wine of equivalent distinction.

(Coffee Review Associate Editor Jason Sarley provided valuable assistance in developing this report and its associated reviews. Thanks also to my Coffee Review colleague Kim Westerman, Barry Levine of Willoughby’s Coffee & Tea, Joseph Brodsky of Ninety Plus Gesha Estates, and to everyone who helped me with last-minute thoughts and information.)

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Among these thirty samples, twelve different varieties were represented, though only six were represented by more than one sample: the rock-star Gesha (aka Geisha) variety with nine samples, averaging almost 93; the bold-beaned, distinctive-tasting hybrid Pacamara (five samples, averaging 92); the similarly bold-beaned and distinctive Maracaturra hybrid (two samples, averaging 91), the ancient, heirloom Bourbon (four samples, averaging close to 92); the respected though not particularly distinctive Catuai (three samples, averaging a bit less than 88), and the similarly respected though not distinctive Villa Sarchi (three samples, averaging 87).

The Rare and the Regular

We also received one sample of the extremely rare Sudan Rume variety, rated 90 but not reviewed. Surprisingly, we received only one sample of pure SL 28, the great Bourbon-derived variety that, along with SL 34, produces the great coffees of Central Kenya. The engaging Papa Lin’s SL 28 Kenya Kirimahiga is reviewed here at 92.

We also tested a sprinkling of entries representing the traditional varieties that until recently stocked most of the fields of Central and South America: Typica (one sample, a very nice Ecuador Typica from Spyhouse Coffee reviewed here at 91), Pacas (one sample, 90, not reviewed) and Caturra (one sample, 89, not reviewed).

Varieties in the Big Picture

If we back off and look at the big picture, it would appear from this month’s small sampling that the more or less traditional Latin American varieties (Typica, Caturra, Pacas, Villa Sarchi, Catuai) tend to produce a solid but conventional-tasting cup that may impress but does not stand out. It is doubtless for this reason that most farmers and millers do not make a special effort to segregate these varieties and market them separately. It also appears that some producers do not make the same effort to rigorously process and grade these everyday varieties as they make with the more valuable varieties like Gesha and Pacamara. This month we had no tainted samples whatsoever among the famous, high-end varieties, but we did have three mildly tainted samples among the Catuai and Villa Sarchi submissions.

Furthermore, we tested no samples whatsoever that were produced purely from newer, disease-resistant tree varieties that introduce (through conventional plant-breeding) Robusta genes into Arabica plant material. These Robusta/Arabica crosses include the Castillo variety that currently is being pushed by the Colombian coffee authorities as a rust and disease-resistant alternative to the Caturra and Typica varieties traditionally grown in Colombia. If the Geshas and Pacamaras and Bourbons and SL28’s constitute the top tier of varietal complexity and distinction and the more traditional varieties like Typica, Caturra, Pacas, etc. make up the middle tier, perhaps the Robusta crosses might form a third and lowest tier. But that is pure assumption at this point. In my limited experience it is very difficult to consistently distinguish Caturra from the suspect Castillo in a rigorous blind cupping, whereas it is easy to distinguish Gesha and Pacamara from either Castillo or Caturra, for example.

Distinctive Looking Beans, Distinctive Cup

Inevitably, perhaps, the most popular nominations among producers and roasters for this cupping were varieties with unusual-looking beans that also promised a distinctive-tasting cup. This matching of distinctive bean appearance with distinctive cup character is useful, of course, as it gives everyone along the line, from exporter to roaster to coffee reviewer to consumer, simple visual confirmation that they are getting what they are paying for.

Gesha, the Look and the Cup

First, there is the large, elongated bean that is an unmistakable visual signature of the Gesha variety. At Coffee Review we only allow ourselves to look at samples after we have tested and rated them in the cup, so it is significant to note that generally the Gesha samples that displayed the most Gesha-like character in the cup displayed uniformly large, Gesha-looking beans, whereas samples in which the big Gesha-looking beans were mixed with significant quantities of smaller, ordinary-looking beans displayed less Gesha character. The mature, full-sized Gesha beans easily can be separated from other, less fully-formed beans by running the beans through sizing screens, but many producers or mills apparently chose not to do this.

The meticulously operated Colombia Cerro Azul farm, which over the last three years has produced a succession of brilliant Geshas, found that some trees in their Gesha fields were smaller and bushier than typical Gesha trees and were producing smaller, more conventional-looking beans. Consequently, Cerro Azul now separates the pickings from these non-Gesha-looking trees and offers them separately, calling them the “Enano” or “dwarf” variety. The one sample of this Gesha-spinoff variety we received this month (from Equator Coffee & Tea, reviewed here at 93) elicited roughly the same response as an Enano sample we cupped earlier this year: It displayed the sensory profile of a Gesha, but a quieter Gesha with rounder acidity and a bit less aromatic fireworks than, for example, the full-on, big-beaned Geshas from the Cerro Azul fields, one of which we reviewed last month at 95.

This Month’s Stand-Out Geshas

As for this month’s Geshas, the first, perhaps surprising observation is that the majority of them were processed by the “natural” method, in which the beans are dried inside the fruit, rather than by the more conventional wet or washed method, in which the fruit residue is removed from the beans before they are dried. The dried-in-the-fruit natural processing applied to all of these Geshas was meticulous, with no hint of the giddy but suspect fermented fruit notes that once consistently surfaced in dried-in-the-fruit coffees from Central America. The highest rated among these natural Geshas, sharing the lead in the ratings at 95, was the Geisha Coffee Roasters’ Mama Cata (Panama) Geisha Natural, a big, intense cup, seething with nuance and a complexity that perhaps was intensified by an unusual roast profile that promoted a dramatic difference in roast color between the outside and the inside of the beans.

The light-roasted, 94-rated Temple Panama Duncan Natural Geisha was an exceptional though perhaps polarizing coffee with its rather austere, drying structure underlying its lush, complexly layered Gesha aromatics. The very light-roasted, 94-rated Revel Coffee Guatemala Acatenango Gesha also combined a brisk yet syrupy structure with a fine complement of aromatics that tended to particularly emphasize citrus and floral notes. The medium-roasted, 93-rated Dragonfly Esmeralda Geisha Leon Natural offered still another variation on the Gesha theme, this one also rather brisk, but with more emphasis on chocolate and a bit less on flowers.

The Big Bean Varieties

The Maragogipe variety, a mutant of Typica first found growing near the town of Maragogipe in Brazil, is the granddaddy of all big-beaned Arabica varieties. Maragogipe produces disconcertingly gigantic beans, sometimes (misleadingly) called elephant beans. Maragogipe is not popular among growers, however, because it is a low-bearing tree with inconsistent cup quality.

Maragogipe’s main impact on the high-end coffee industry is in its progeny: when crossed with the Bourbon-related dwarf variety Pacas it created the second star of this month’s cupping, the Pacamara, and crossed with Caturra it appears in another successful (though less widely grown) Central America variety, the Maracaturra. Both Pacamara and Maracaturra display large, oval-shaped beans, though typically not as mammoth as Maragogipe. Both, however, are more productive trees than the Maragogipe and produce a more consistently attractive cup. The strength of the Pacamara is a deep, layered, often savory-sweet complexity supported by complete and balanced structure, a tendency well-represented in the medium-roasted, 94-rated Old Soul Nicaragua Los Congos Natural Pacamara, which displayed notes ranging from pungent (black currant) to lushly sweet (banana, jasmine) to chocolaty. The savory side of Pacamara came through more distinctly in the lighter-roasted, 93-rated PT’s El Socorro Guatemala, a wet-processed coffee with an unusual and engaging juxtaposition of complex nut, peachy fruit, bitterish citrus and spicy floral notes.

The Ancient Stand-By Bourbons

Although the heirloom Bourbon variety as it has naturalized in Latin America tends to produce roundish rather than oval beans, it is difficult to consistently confirm a coffee as a Bourbon purely by looking at bean size and shape. And Bourbon does not seem to produce a consistently distinctive cup either, perhaps because at origin Bourbon beans are too easily mixed with beans from other less distinctive varieties growing side-by-side in the same fields. We only had one big, explosively original Bourbon, perfectly structured, alive with pungent fruit and deep floral notes, a new offering from the innovating Kona, Hawaii producer Hula Daddy. We review the Hula Daddy Red Bourbon here at 95.

Other Bourbons in this month’s cupping, all from Latin America, were good to very good coffees, but did not quite pop with distinctive Bourbon character. In past single-variety cuppings we received more Bourbons and arguably better Bourbons from Latin America than we did this year; perhaps the enormous stress of this year’s leaf rust epidemic particularly sapped production of the Bourbon variety.

Nevertheless, Bourbon is a good variety play for consumers who “just like good coffee,” and who are not pursuing something particularly unusual or distinctive-tasting. The best Bourbons, like this month’s Hula Daddy, often come across as particularly intense and elegant conventional-style coffees, whereas both Geshas and Pacamaras present unusual profiles, the Geshas sweetly bright, big-bodied and dramatic with fruit, floral and cacao-like notes, the Pacamaras lower-toned and more given to resonance and richness than fruit and flowers.

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Six of the top-rated thirteen Panamas were “naturals” – dried in the fruit. In a similar cupping of Panamas ten years ago none would have been naturals; all would have been conventionally wet-processed.

Seven of thirteen were produced exclusively from trees of the now-celebrated Gesha or Geisha variety of Arabica. Ten years ago this spectacularly distinctive-tasting variety hadn’t even entered the specialty coffee world’s vocabulary or blown away its collective olfactory systems.

Four of the seven Geshas we reviewed were additionally goosed with an alternative processing method. Three were processed by the dried-in-the-fruit or “natural” method and one by the “honey” method, meaning the skins were removed from the beans but the fruit flesh was allowed to stay on the bean as it dried. Only three were traditionally wet-processed, meaning that all of the soft fruit residue, including the flesh or pulp, was removed before the beans were dried.

So, again, only two of the thirteen 90-and-over Panamas fit the criteria for a traditional Panama: produced from Varieties-Not-Called-Gesha and processed by the orthodox wet or washed method.

Confirming Evidence: Best of Panama 2012

This shift in practice at the top end of Panama coffee production was clearly reflected in the format of the 2012 Best of Panama green coffee competition. The results of the competition were divided into three categories: Geshas (in this case processed by the wet method only), Naturals (any variety including Geshas; it turned out that the three top-rated in this category also were Geshas), and “Traditionals” (any variety not called Gesha processed by the conventional wet method or honey method). Thus it appears that the very high end of Panama coffee production is increasingly identified with the Gesha variety, while processing method is a complete toss-up.

Such uncoupling of origin from traditional coffee type is going on everywhere in the specialty coffee world, but it appears to be prevailing with particular thoroughness in Panama. Why is Panama so precocious? In part, of course, it isn’t, since a lot of good conventionally wet-processed coffees from a mix of familiar varieties continue to be shipped out of Panama. But the farms on the slopes of Volcan Barú that make up the small membership of the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama definitely are precocious. The families owning these farms are technically sophisticated and appear to be thoroughly networked into the larger world of specialty coffee, particularly the top end of the American and Asian markets.

A Gesha Primer

For those who have only recently tuned in, Gesha/Geisha is a variety of Arabica with a startlingly distinctive flavor profile (complex, intense, often lavender-like floral character with cocoa-nib-like chocolate) that originated in Ethiopia but was first “discovered” by the coffee world after it was found growing on Price Peterson’s Hacienda La Esmeralda farm in the Boquete region of Panama and subsequently blew away the judges at a Panama green coffee competition in 2004.

Why Does Gesha Cost So Much? Because there still isn’t enough of it. Since introducing the variety to the world, the Peterson family has considerably expanded its Gesha production. Geshas also are coming to market from other farms in Panama as well as from other regions in Latin America, particularly Colombia and Costa Rica. Nevertheless, Gesha continues to command very high prices because supply continues to fall short of demand. For this year’s crop, for example, the highest-priced Geshas from the Hacienda La Esmeralda farm sold at auction for around $66 per pound for the green, unroasted beans. That means these beans probably sell roasted for at least twice that amount, or the equivalent of around $120 per pound. The least expensive Gesha in the La Esmeralda 2012 auction sold for around $30 per pound, green and unroasted. Eventually, of course, enough farmers will plant enough Gesha to bring down its price, but for now, demand continues to outstrip production and prices remain quite high.

Are All Geshas Equal? This variety appears remarkably stable in its basic flavor characteristics, regardless of where it is grown. Nevertheless, from year to year and from farm to farm the intensity, balance and completeness of the Gesha character vary greatly. This month’s Klatch Coffee Esmeralda León (96) was spectacularly intense and complete in its Geshaness. On the other hand, we also cupped two similarly wet-processed Geshas from other batches in the 2012 Esmeralda line-up that were attractive coffees in the Gesha style, definitely over 90, but not nearly as intense, complex and complete as the Klatch León. Over the past couple of years other farms both in Panama and elsewhere have produced Geshas that in our view are as good as or better than the best Esmeralda production, but again, we have no idea how consistent these new productions will be over the long run. In short, we have yet to cup a Gesha that we have rated less than 91, but those that push higher – 93 to 97 – have varied by farm and by year.

Are Geshas Worth the Price?

What you are paying for in a good Gesha is its unique cup profile. No other coffee tastes quite like it. You may not like that profile, however. Or you may adore it and be tempted to put in for a raise so you can keep buying it. My current co-cupper, Jason Sarley, brewed one of the 93-rated Geshas from this month’s reviews at a friend’s café and offered cups to a couple sitting at a nearby table. One, a man, almost spit the coffee out and proclaimed it one of the worst he had ever tasted. His companion, a woman, immediately lit up and began enthusing about all of its amazing flavors, even describing these flavors more or less as coffee professionals do: floral, chocolaty, etc. (We have no information on how this discrepancy played out later in the evening, and whether these two individuals ever drank coffee together again.)

The Dried-in-the-Fruit Strategy

Two of this month’s four highest rated Geshas were “naturals,” dried in the fruit rather than conventionally wet-processed: the Klatch Coffee Don Pachi (94) and the CafeTasters Esmeralda Natural (93). A third was “honey” processed: Simon Hsieh’s Panama Geisha Honey (93). This result hints at an interesting speculation: It is possible that Geshas may particularly benefit from alternative processing methods. It appeared to us that these alternative processes, which when well-executed tend to round acidity and consolidate and deepen aroma/flavor notes, could be particularly well suited to bring balance and depth to the intense jostling of assertive high notes in the Gesha profile.

A caveat, however. All of the naturals reviewed this month, including the two splendid “non-Gesha” Elida Estate naturals from Willoughby’s (93) and Klatch (93) respectively, were superbly executed dried-in-the-fruit coffees. The salty, bitter finish and exaggerated fruit ferment that often mar dried-in-the-fruit coffees were nowhere in evidence. Taken together these four top-rated natural-process Panamas, two Geshas and two “non-Geshas,” seem to suggest that some producers, in Panama at least, finally understand how to handle the challenges of drying coffee in the fruit.

2012 The Coffee Review. All rights reserved.

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Surprisingly, the jury is still out on the impact of variety on the flavor characteristics of coffee. Many in the gourmet crowd feel strongly that variety is of greatest importance in determining cup character and quality. On the other hand, agronomists and their allies tend to argue that variety has little influence on cup character. They generally feel that specialty coffee buyers are snobs carrying on about nothing and complicating their efforts to get farmers to plant more high-yielding, disease-resistant varieties.

I think we can make two rather safe observations. First, many of the newer hybrid varieties of arabica, those with some robusta bred into their makeup, tend to be considerably more neutral in the cup than traditional varieties. On the other hand, most traditional varieties are not particularly different or distinctive in flavor. They may produce a better and livelier coffee than the robusta-incorporating hybrids, but few are different-tasting enough to get picked out from a crowd on the cupping table. Some may be old and honored, like Typica, and some are middle-aged and slightly suspect, like Caturra, but other factors like climate, soil and altitude (not to mention processing procedures) tend to prevail over any distinctive influence of variety on flavor. In other words, it is impossible to reliably distinguish between Typica and Caturra on the basis of flavor profile alone unless the samples are from the same crop year and from the same farm or mountainside. And even then it will be a dicey exercise focused on subtle differences that may change from one phase of the harvest to the next.

The Ethiopia and (Possibly) Bourbon Exceptions

There do appear to be exceptions to this rather drab conclusion, however. Trees from certain native Ethiopian varieties seem to carry aspects of their distinctive lemon and floral tendencies to other parts of the world. This possibility was dramatically confirmed a few years ago by the emergence of the Hacienda Esmeralda Gesha, a variety of Arabica with Ethiopian heritage found growing on Price Peterson’s farm in Panama. The Esmeralda Gesha’s astonishingly different flavor profile almost instantly made it the world’s most prized and expensive coffee. And the Gesha is unmistakably different in cup character from coffees of other, more familiar varieties growing on the Peterson farm. Since then, of course, Gesha has been extensively planted elsewhere. A sample I recently cupped from Costa Rica, presumably from very young trees, showed some of the Esmeralda character, though in a rather muted way.

There are other exceptions to the all-traditional-arabica-varieties-(except-some-from-Ethiopia)-tend-to-taste-more-or-less-the-same rule, and three of the most celebrated form the basis of this month’s review: the Bourbon varieties and the great Kenya varieties SL-28 and SL-34. These varieties not only appear to carry some of their distinction with them when they travel, but they also share a similar heritage, given that most coffee botanists consider SL-28 and SL-34 Bourbon types.

Goals of the Month

We had two goals for this month’s review: First, find some fine, distinctive coffees for readers to enjoy (Bourbon and SL-28 are good places to look). Second, test, however unscientifically, the hypothesis that there is a Bourbon cup character that carries from geography to geography.

Bourbon has a long and rather obscure history. It is a natural mutant of arabica apparently discovered growing on the island of Reunion (then Bourbon) in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Madagascar in the late 18th century. Farmers found it more disease resistant and heavier bearing than other coffee then growing on the island, and it (together with another variety called Leroy Pointu) gradually replaced other coffee varieties grown on the island, along the way adopting the name of the island and developing a reputation for superb cup quality in Europe. Little to no coffee is grown on Reunion today, but Bourbon seeds eventually were carried throughout the coffee world, where they naturalized in new environments. Today strains of Bourbon are still widely grown in Brazil, in parts of Central America, particularly El Salvador, in patches elsewhere in the Americas, and in East and Central Africa, where it was introduced from Reunion in the early 19th century and where it lives on in various natural hybrids and selections like Kenya’s SL-28 and SL-34.

Bourbon’s relationship to SL-28 is particularly important to the inner history of coffee, because SL-28, and to a lesser degree SL-34, are responsible in Kenya for what are arguably some of the world’s consistently finest coffees. SL-28 and SL-34 are both selections made by the famous Scot Laboratory (hence SL) that did pioneering coffee development work in Kenya and Tanzania in 1935 through 1939. The various Scot Laboratory selections, all numbered, were not created by artificial cross-pollination, by the way, but were selected from trees collected from throughout East and Central Africa. Those who have studied SL-28’s physical traits suggest that it has Bourbon characteristics as well as characteristics associated with Ethiopian and possible Sudanese coffees, whereas SL-34 appears to be closer to the original Bourbon type.

The Nature of Bourbonosity

Now to the question of the Bourbon cup profile, or what my co-cupper for this article, Andy Newbom of Barefoot Coffee, irreverently calls “Bourbonosity.” I asked Andy what distinguished “Bourbonosity” for him, and he responded at considerable length and with great vivacity, but the heart of his description was “butterscotch flavor highlighted with sweet lemony citrus.” My own definition follows the same rough trajectory. I think of the quintessential Bourbon note as pungent dry berry with associated hints of lemon and aromatic wood, a little as though one took ripe blackberries, squirted a little lemon juice on them and then nuzzled them on fresh-cut cedar. Some associate the Bourbon note with black currants. The essential notion is a fruity sweetness tempered by a dry pungency.

This is not a soda-fountain type of flavor note, by the way. When cuppers carry on about “blueberry” in certain dry-processed Ethiopia coffees, for example, they are describing an aroma and flavor note that literally smells and tastes like fresh blueberries. The Bourbon flavor complex, by comparison, is unique to coffee, appears to be inherent in the bean itself, and for those reasons perhaps, is more deeply treasured by those of us who feel we recognize it.

Without exchanging notes during the cupping, Andy and I separately indicated the level of Bourbon character we detected in these coffees, from “a lot,” to “some,” to “none.” Two samples were so darkly roasted we couldn’t tell anything about their green character, but with the others we felt we identified “some” in all samples and “a lot” in about half of them.

A Bourbon Experiment

Finally, here is my trump card, however singular and modest, in regard to the portability of the Bourbon character. This month’s top-rated coffee is a deliberate experiment in testing the capacity for the Bourbon character to cross boundaries and jump oceans without completely losing itself. Encouraged by Miguel Meza, the innovating founder of Paradise Roasters, a farmer in the Ka’u growing district of Hawaii, about thirty miles southeast of Kona, segregated fruit from a patch of about fifty Bourbon trees growing on her farm, carried out the fruit removal and drying carefully using traditional procedures, and submitted the coffee medium-roasted for our cupping.

Neither Andy nor I had any idea whose coffee we were tasting or where it came from, but upon cupping this sample we both immediately and secretly concluded that it was a Kenya. In fact, I felt badly for some of the other Bourbons on the table because there was such a great Kenya competing with them. Instead, this striking sample turned out to be a Hawaii coffee unlike any other Hawaii coffee either Andy or I had ever cupped before. “You’ll swear it’s a Kenya. You’ll never guess it’s a Hawaii coffee,” Andy wrote in his notes. And I can vouch that it does not taste at all like the other excellent coffees from trees of the Typical and Caturra varieties growing on Lorie Obra’s farm, coffees that I have cupped on three different occasions over the past two crop years.

Babied, but It’s Still the Bourbon

Of course, Lorie would be the first to point out that this particular small lot of coffee was babied all the way from tree to bag. Everything that coffee people want to happen to a coffee between tree and green bean happened. Lorie picked the coffee herself, so there were no greens or overripe fruit in the mix; she carefully skimmed off immature beans or “floaters”; she removed the fruit from the beans by the traditional method: The fruit pulp was loosened by fermentation (“dry” fermentation without a covering of water) and subsequently washed off. The coffee was sundried in a shallow layer.

But meticulous preparation can only make a coffee taste better; it cannot make it taste different. It does not assure the sort of explosive, soaring, clean fruit character that this coffee displayed, which I feel can only be attributed to variety.

Of course one small experiment does not conclusively prove anything, particularly with a beverage as perverse and complex as coffee. But it does suggest, as this entire cupping does, that Bourbon and Bourbon-derived varieties are a good place to start when looking for coffees with inherent greatness.

Co-Cupper Andy Newbom

I was joined for this month’s reviews by Andy Newbom, the irrepressible leader of Barefoot Coffee, a small, widely admired roasting company in the Silicon Valley area of the San Francisco Bay region. Andy is a meticulous, experienced cupper with excellent judgment and a quiet demeanor at the table. His coffee descriptions, however, roar off the screen in tumbling, witty cascades of overlapping sensory adjectives and irreverent allusion. I did my best to maintain some of Andy’s extravagant descriptive style in the reviews that follow. But for an unadulterated, only slightly edited dose of Andy, here is his biography, straight from the source:

“Exhibiting a cornucopia of fruit-forward intensity, balanced with an abundance of nuts, Andy Newbom is decidedly sparkly and loaded with tongue-in-cheek sweetness. A trifle un-tattooed and under-pierced on his own, mercifully he is backed by the best coffee people anywhere in the form of the Barefoot Coffee team. Best served chilled (never hot) to appreciate the refreshingly over the top, idiosyncratic voice of this catador. This vintage 1969 coffee maniac is seriously head over heels in love and spends almost every hour of the day drinking coffee juice. Pairs well with his life-long love and bride Nanelle.”

2009 The Coffee Review. All rights reserved.

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Despite the relatively large number of competitions held this year in Latin America (I count ten; most are organized under the auspices of the Cup of Excellence program) and a combined list of prize winners that must run into the several hundreds, relatively few of the winning coffees make it to United States consumers. About forty American roasting companies participate directly or indirectly in the Internet auctions for competition coffees, but these companies often follow the sensible practice of pooling their resources and bidding as a group on their favorites from the various competitions.

This practice of group bidding accounts for the repetition among the coffees reviewed this month. Eighteen roasters submitted a total of forty-one samples for review, but many of the samples consisted of the same green coffee – roasted, of course, slightly differently. For example, four roasting companies submitted their versions of the first-place winner from the El Salvador Cup of Excellence competition, La Montana, and eight sent versions of the second-place Guatemala winner, San Jose Ocana.

Three First-Place Winners

This options-narrowing redundancy could leave American coffee lovers feeling short-changed. On the other hand, we do have the satisfaction of knowing that we have the opportunity to sample three coffees that took first place in their respective competitions, the El Salvador first-place La Montana, the Colombia First Harvest winner La Esperanza, and the Panama first-place winner (and currently and arguably the world’s most celebrated coffee) the Esmeralda Especial. The competition-winning lot of the Esmeralda reviewed here, by the way, attracted a world-record price of $130 per pound (as a green, unroasted coffee) at Internet auction. It is sold out at The Roasterie, the company submitting the sample reviewed here, but probably can be found elsewhere, though at understandably high prices and in inevitable short supply.

Two Very Distinctive First-Place Winners

Both the Esmeralda Especial and the El Salvador La Montana are unusual coffees, and both owe much of their distinctiveness and value to the botanical variety of the trees that produced them (or at least to the felicitous harmony of those trees and the terroir on which they are grown). The Esmeralda is produced from trees of the rediscovered Gesha variety, a cultivar of arabica that originated in Ethiopia, the botanical home of coffee, and traveled a complicated route from there, most likely Kenya to Tanzania to Costa Rica, before it reached its now hallowed hillside in Panama. At this point we do not know for certain how this variety fares when grown elsewhere in the world, but we doubtless will find out soon enough, given the number of farmers who are attempting to plant it.

Its peculiar and seductive sensory combination of night flowers, cocoa and wine- or brandy-toned fruit is so distinctive among the world’s coffees that to say one has cupped it “blind” is almost impossible. It immediately identifies itself with the first noseful of aroma. And this latest version seems even more distinctive than those I cupped in past years. I remember the first year I cupped the Esmeralda Gesha I reacted as many did, and as my colleague Kevin Knox did last year when he called it “the finest Ethiopian coffee Panama can produce.” At first it did simply seem like a very good Ethiopia coffee that somehow made it to Panama. At this point, however, and after this latest cupping, I feel that characterization is unjust. Although Ethiopia may be a starting point in attempting to find sensory descriptors for the Esmeralda, this coffee tastes, quite literally, like no other in the world. And, for me at least, it’s all good.

The El Salvador La Montana, on the other hand, is produced from a more recently developed variety, the Pacamara, a cross between the huge-beaned Maragogipe (first found growing in Brazil in 1937) and Pacas, a local strain of the old and respected Bourbon variety. At least as grown on some farms in El Salvador, the big-beaned Pacamara produces a very fine and distinctive coffee, though not nearly as unearthly and different as the explosive Esmeralda Gesha.

The Bigger Picture

The other prize winners we cupped for this month struck me as distinguished and interesting coffees, though not quite as distinctive as the Esmeralda Especial and the La Montana. Overall, seventeen out of the forty-one samples submitted scored 90 or higher; of those seventeen, ten are reviewed here. The remaining twenty-four all scored in the 87 to 89 range. In most cases, I felt the lower scores owed more to roasting decisions (more on that below) than on the essential character of the green coffees.

A note on ratings: As usual I cupped these coffees blind, meaning the coffees were identified by number only with no indication of origin, roasting company or history. When I matched the data from the various competitions to my assessments I was struck by how closely my scores matched the scores of the competition juries. In the past, my scores often tended to be higher than the juries’ scores, occasionally lower.

I suspect the reason for the closer match this year between my scores and the jury scores may be the growing consensus around ratings for Latin-American coffees among international specialty coffee professionals. Some years ago competition scores tended to be lower, probably because some jury members were too cautious or critical to give coffees the scores some of the rest of us felt they deserved. Apparently we are over that, which is good.

An Opportunity to Better Understand Roast

What this month’s set of coffees does give the reader is the opportunity to experience subtle distinctions of roast as they apply to the same green coffee.

One common way of discussing degree or “darkness” of roast is based on the cycle of the crack, the pattern of sounds produced by the roasting beans. Particularly crucial is the onset of the “second crack,” a sort of crinkling sound accompanied by an intensification of a more pungent smelling roast smoke. The onset of the second crack marks the turning point in the development of the roast from brighter medium styles to darker styles that gradually, as the second crack accelerates, embody a more and more pungent, “roastier” flavor profile with an accompanying rounding and simplification of green coffee character.

With one exception, the coffees reviewed here roughly organize themselves around three points along the roast spectrum. First, those definitely lighter roasted coffees for which the roast was terminated well before the second crack (indicated by first or whole-bean Agtron number of 55 or higher), second, those that were dropped from the roast chamber just before the second crack (first Agtron number around 50), and finally those that were allowed to ride just into the second crack (initial Agtron number around 45). Only the Montana Coffee Roasters’ Nicaragua Santa Isabel (rating 90) was allowed to develop well into the second crack at Agtron 38.

What do these often subtle differences in roast color and development mean for the coffee consumer?

An informative contrast is presented by the two versions of the El Salvador first-place La Monta-a reviewed for this month. The Terroir version of the La Montana (rated 93, initial or whole-bean Agtron number 62), for example, was stopped well before the second crack, making it most definitely a “medium” roast, whereas the Caffe Pronto version (rating 91, whole-bean Agtron 46) was allowed to ride just slightly into the second crack, subtly rounding and deepening sensation and developing the pungent character of the fruit. I felt both were outstanding presentations of this coffee, and although my rating shows a slight preference for the Terroir version with its wider range of sensation and generally brighter character, many readers may prefer the still distinctive but simpler, deeper-toned character of the Caffe Pronto version.

On the other hand, the Guatemala second-place San Jose Ocana, a rather delicate coffee, appeared to present a different challenge for roasters. Whereas the La Montana seemed to respond well to a variety of roast levels – all four versions we received attracted ratings of 90 or higher despite significantly differing degrees of roast – the eight versions of the San Jose Ocana we received showed a much greater range in score. Three versions attracted ratings of 90 or higher, with the other five hovering around 88, still a very good number but not exceptional. What struck me when I matched my blind ratings to the Agtron numbers after concluding the cupping was that the San Jose Ocana seemed to have a sweet spot for success around Agtron 46 to 48, precisely at/barely into the onset of the second crack. Versions that were slightly lighter (dropped from the roasting chamber before the second crack) or slightly darker (dropped just after the onset of the second crack) either seemed to fail to develop the lush but fragile aromatic bloom this coffee was capable of producing or failed to preserve it under the impact of the slightly darker roast.

If this analysis of roast detail seems obsessive to many readers, my apologies. In fact, such distinctions barely scratch the surface of the issues around roasting that impact coffee flavor. Left out are countless subtleties involving machine technology and patterns of heat and air velocity, all unstated and difficult-to-quantify issues that also impacted how this month’s coffees tasted and felt in the cup.

And the Price?

All of the competition winners reviewed this month are rather pricy, by the way, not only the Esmeralda. They cost more because the roasting companies paid more for them. Most sold at auction for prices four to seven times current regular prices for similar green coffees.

Are they worth the extra money? In my view, definitely yes with the two most distinctive coffees in the cupping, the La Montana and especially the La Esmeralda. With the other winners the main reason for buying these 90+ coffees as opposed to other, similarly rated coffees bought outside of competition and costing less, is the aficionado pleasure of participating in the excitement and complexities of the competition phenomenon itself. You can second-guess the experts, or at least check in on what they are doing. Also, of course, these competition winners give you bragging rights if you are the type that likes that sort of thing.

2007 The Coffee Review. All rights reserved.

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