HLE GIGANTE 4 NC

This is the farm every Geisha gets compared to, so I have wanted a proper Esmeralda nano lot on the shelf for a long time. What I keep coming back to is the patience in how they work. They pick a single plot, keep it apart from everything around it, ferment it in a cold room at 12 degrees and then dry it slowly in a dehumidified room over days rather than hours. It is an enormous amount of care for a very small amount of coffee, and you taste it. Their naming looks like a code until somebody hands you the key. Each one tells you the plot, how many times that plot has been picked, how the coffee was fermented and how it was dried, so the whole recipe is written on the bag if you know how to read it.

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.