Gesha Village, #151

You may see the specificity of Gesha 1931 and have questions about the difference, if there is any, between simply Gesha and Gesha 1931. It’s a keen observation, and a great question– let’s break it down a bit. Gesha is the name of the variety that exploded to prominence at the Best of Panama competition in 2004, shaping much of the way specialty coffee has evolved for the last two decades. The short and sweet of it is that this variety was harvested by a Consul of the British Empire in Ethiopia tasked with collecting coffee seeds from around Gesha Mountain in 1931.  From there these beans made their way to the Director of Agriculture in Kenya, down to Tanzania, over to Costa Rica, then ultimately to Panama where the full potential of this variety would be realized. 

Three years after the emergence of Gesha on the global scene as the prize of Hacienda La Esmeralda, the founders of Gesha Village set out to recontextualize this now celebrated variety. Leasing a plot of land near the Gori Gesha Forest, they went on a search of their own through the forest to make a selection of coffee that was the best match for what had become famous as Panamanian Gesha. After analyzing the plant morphology, bean shape and size, and the cupping profile most of all, they landed on this selection that is now known as Gesha 1931– named for the year the acclaimed variety was first harvested from the forest.