FINCA NAHALIEL

Finca Nahaliel sits high above Volcán, in the Chiriquí highlands of western Panama, the country's most celebrated region for Geisha. Here Itto Guerra farms Geisha at around 1,823 metres, where cool nights and volcanic soils slow ripening and concentrate the delicate florals the variety is prized for. The same trees are processed several ways, washed, natural and honey, to show how much a single Geisha can change with the drying.

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 washed process is the cleanest and most precise way to prepare coffee, and the one that lets a single origin and variety speak most clearly. Every trace of fruit and sticky mucilage is stripped away before the bean is dried, usually by fermenting it loose in tanks and rinsing it off with water, or by scrubbing it away mechanically. Because no fruit is left touching the bean as it dries, nothing masks the raw character of the coffee itself. That is why the washed method is trusted for the finest lots, showing off clarity, bright lively acidity, and the clear stamp of where the coffee was grown.

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.

Honey processing sits in the middle ground between washed and natural, and takes its name from the sticky, honey like feel of the coffee as it dries. The skin is pulped off, but some or all of the sweet mucilage is deliberately left clinging to the bean through the drying stage. How much is left on, and how dark the coffee turns as it dries, gives the different styles their names, running from white through yellow and red to black honey, each one a little richer than the last. The result is a cup with round sweetness, soft gentle acidity, and a syrupy, layered body that borrows a little from both of its neighbours.