CRISPILIANO

Crispiliano Contreras is a Boquete agronomist and the grower behind Finca El Trompo, a Geisha farm high in the Chiriquí highlands. Across Panama he is known as a harvest and processing consultant, and by his own account he has advised celebrated estates for over thirty years. We have worked with him for two years. Finca El Trompo is his personal project, and this Geisha, picked at roughly two thousand metres and dried as a natural, is the first release of the lot he holds as his finest work.

Geisha, also spelled Gesha, traces its roots to the forests of southwestern Ethiopia, where the original seed was collected in the middle of the twentieth century before travelling through research collections in Central America. For decades it was little more than a curiosity, until growers working at high altitude discovered how extraordinary it could taste. At its best it is unmistakable, with intense florality, a delicate tea like quality, bright citrus, and tropical fruit. The plants are slender and shy to yield and offer little disease resistance, so Geisha is demanding to grow and slow to crop, which is exactly why truly great examples stay rare and so highly prized.

The natural process is the oldest way of preparing coffee, dating back to the earliest days of the crop in Ethiopia and Yemen. The whole cherry is dried intact, with the skin, pulp, and sticky mucilage all left on the bean, so as the fruit slowly dries it feeds its sugars and aromas straight into the seed. Getting it right takes patience and constant attention, as the cherries have to be turned regularly on raised beds over many days to dry evenly and avoid faults. Done well, the natural process gives coffees their heavy body, deep berry and jam fruit, and big, wine like sweetness.