Is Huakui Coffee the Same as Panama Geisha Coffee?

No. Huakui is a separate lot name that won the 2017 TOH, while Panama Geisha coffee is the variety that took the 2004 BOP championship at Hacienda La Esmeralda after seeds arrived from Costa Rica. Calling Huakui top-tier Geisha was a naming mix-up, not a shared origin.

Geisha was found in an Ethiopian forest in 1931 and stayed obscure for over seventy years. In Ethiopia the word also names a southwestern region and its coffee. Taiwan translated it as geisha in Chinese, and in 2006 Coffee Review's Mr. Yuan introduced the Guixia rendering to mainland China. Red Label and Gold Label are grading terms, not separate varieties.

Is the bean behind Huakui coffee and Geisha coffee actually from the same origin? This question sparked quite a bit of discussion in the early days when Huakui became popular. This article will trace Geisha's journey to fame from the forests of Ethiopia to Panama's Hacienda La Esmeralda, explain the origins of the two names "Geisha" and "瑰夏", and sort out the naming logic behind grading systems such as Red Label and Gold Label. At the same time, the article will also reconstruct the complete story of Huakui, from winning the TOH in 2017 to releasing a new version number year by year, explaining the original meaning of the word "Huakui" in Japanese geisha culture and how it was misrepresented as top-tier Geisha. Finally, Front Street will guide you through the specific differences between Huakui flavor and Geisha flavor, and offer region recommendations for getting started with Geisha.

(On the left is Sidamo Huakui coffee, on the right is Panama Geisha coffee)

Front Street recalls that during the period when Huakui was at its hottest, a claim circulated online: Huakui is top-tier Geisha. Today, with information transparent enough, everyone can naturally see through true and false at a glance, but at the time it really left many people confused. The source of this misunderstanding is actually inseparable from Geisha's other Chinese translation name—"艺伎".

"Geisha", Geisha's other name in China

In 1931, Geisha was discovered in a forest in Ethiopia, but for more than seventy years afterward it remained obscure. It was not until 2004 that Panama's Hacienda La Esmeralda used Geisha seeds introduced from Costa Rica to win the BOP competition championship, and Geisha truly entered the public eye. Since then, Geisha has almost become a "championship weapon" in the hands of major estates and competitors.

Because Geisha is spelled the same as the English word for "geisha", coffee professionals in Taiwan directly translated it as 艺伎. Later people discovered that Geisha actually has two meanings in Ethiopia: one refers to a specific region in the southwest of the country, and the other refers to the coffee variety produced in that region. Therefore, in 2006, when Mr. Yuan of Coffee Review first introduced Panama Geisha to mainland China, he named it "瑰夏".

What are some representatives of top-tier Geisha coffee?

Many customers at Front Street, when chatting about Geisha, always mention the two "labels" on the blackboard—Hacienda La Esmeralda's Red Label Geisha and Gesha Village's Gold Label Geisha. Because the cost of green beans is relatively high, Front Street specifically listed them separately and marked the pour-over prices, which are "75/cup" and "60/cup" respectively. This also attracted a lot of attention, especially from those who had long heard of Geisha's fame but had not yet had the chance to savor it carefully.

These "label" Geishas that baristas talk about are names created to highlight grade. Whether it is Red Label, Gold Label, or the lower-ranked Green Label and Blue Label, even if we cannot tell who is higher or lower just from the prefix, we can at least understand: this certain-label Geisha from a certain estate should be higher grade than ordinary Geisha, and of course may also be more expensive. In fact, this kind of "label" naming exists only in the Chinese-language context. In other words, if you switch back to their original English names, you may not be able to tell who is who or who is more premium than whom.

Hacienda La Esmeralda's Red Label Geisha is originally named "Esmeralda Special", translated into Chinese as "翡翠特选", and is the highest-quality Geisha coffee bean sold by the estate. It not only requires a cupping score of 91 or above, but each lot also comes with detailed "birth information". The "red" in Red Label comes from the background color of the trademark for this product. Hacienda La Esmeralda's Green Label and Blue Label follow the same logic, with the goal of making it easier for domestic consumers to remember and distinguish them.

Similarly, Gesha Village's Gold Label Geisha also has its own English name "Rarities", meaning "rare treasures", or simply put, the highest-grade Geisha released by Gesha Village (non-auction lots). The "gold" in Gold Label also comes from the background color of the product trademark. According to Gesha Village's official website, this grade of Geisha accounts for only 10% of the estate's total production, and like Hacienda La Esmeralda's Red Label, each lot comes with plot information for buyers' reference.

Although this practice of replacing original product names with background colors has indeed made different grades of Geisha easier to understand and remember in China, it sometimes also causes mix-ups because of "color clashes". For example, in the Geisha production and sales systems established by these two estates, both have grades using red and green background panels, so there are two "Red Labels" and two "Green Labels" on the market. When ordering, remember to be careful, or just ask the barista which estate this cup of Geisha actually comes from.

A perennial favorite—"Huakui"

In 2017, the Buku Abel processing station in Hambela, in the Guji subregion of Ethiopia, won the TOH championship with a naturally processed heirloom coffee bean. It had an intense strawberry flavor, high sweetness, and a creamy, smooth mouthfeel. This bean was Huakui.

After winning the championship, the green beans from this winning lot were introduced by a green bean trader in Beijing. In the same year, at the World Brewers Cup, China runner-up Li Jianfei used this bean to defeat many Geishas along the way and ultimately took second place.

As a result, this bean quickly gained extremely high exposure, and combined with outstanding value for money, it conquered many coffee lovers. Since then, every year we can see Huakui from the new harvest season rushing onto the popularity charts with a brand-new numerical number.

What do Huakui 8.0 and Huakui 9.0 mean?

Friends who often go online should see Huakui paired with numbers, such as "Huakui 7.0", "Huakui 8.0", and so on. What exactly do these numbers represent? In our impression, coffee bean naming usually follows a traceable pattern and does not change once determined, such as Geisha being a variety, Blue Mountain being a origin, and Goddingding being a processing station. But Huakui is especially special. It is like Apple's iPhone, needing a new "version name" every year before it can go on the market. Why is that?

In fact, before this bean was called "Huakui", it had only one English name, "Hambella", translated as "罕贝拉". To put it plainly, what we call "Huakui coffee" is a traditional natural G1 coffee bean from the Hambella producing area, and the "Buku Abel" processing station is its more detailed traceability information, located in Dimtu town.

After "Huakui" became famous, in order to meet surging market demand, DW Company added up to 5 independent green coffee drying and processing stations in Hambella Wamena Wereda, all located in the core producing area of Dimtu town. In addition to the original Buku Abel, four other small villages—Buku Saysay, Haro Soresa, Tirtiro Goye, and Seke Bokosa—also joined the production of natural coffee beans. It is reported that at that time, the "Huakui" produced annually under DW Company had already reached tens of millions of tons.

Since the 2018 harvest season, Huakui (natural G1 coffee beans) from the same growing origin and the same processing station has already changed in taste. Front Street found through cupping at the time that although the Huakui of 2018 and 2019 also had flavors similar to the 2017 Huakui, in terms of body, aftertaste, and other mouthfeel aspects, they were not as good as the "first-generation Huakui".

Therefore, in order to continue selling this natural coffee from Hambella while distinguishing it from the original version, domestic green bean trading companies, counting from after 2017, created an X.0 suffix for each subsequent year's lot. For example, the 2018 lot was called "Huakui 2.0", the 2019 production was called "Huakui 3.0 and 3.1"... last year's release was "Huakui 7.0", and so on. In this way, we can identify which year's lot the Huakui we bought belongs to through the suffix.

So why do people think Huakui is top-tier Geisha?

At this point, I believe everyone already has some answer in mind, and the reason lies in the name "Huakui". Geisha's earliest name in China was "艺伎", and a geisha in Japanese culture is a title for a kind of artistic performer. At first they were only staff performing in entertainment venues, but people often made mistakes and regarded them as workers in another profession in those venues. In order to distinguish them from that profession, the title "艺伎" came into being. And the top performers among geisha would be given the title "Huakui".

The reason this natural heirloom bean was named Huakui was to imply that it could defeat Geisha and become the top star among beans. Then, this statement spread online and changed from "Huakui wants to defeat Geisha and become the top star" into "Huakui, this coffee bean, is top-tier Geisha", which is truly both amusing and exasperating. To avoid making fools of ourselves again in the future, Front Street believes it is necessary for us to first understand what "Huakui flavor" and "Geisha flavor" are, and the differences between them.

"Huakui flavor" and "Geisha flavor"

Huakui, if taken only literally, might make us think it is a coffee "overflowing with floral fragrance". Actually, that is not the case. Huakui's floral note is not especially intense; instead, its fruit aroma is particularly prominent, such as creamy strawberry, mango, jackfruit, citrus, blueberry, and so on. It has the ripe tropical fruit flavor unique to Sidamo natural beans, often leaving a deep impression. Moreover, what won "Huakui" first place in that year's TOH green bean competition was precisely this rich berry aroma.

Front Street's new-season Huakui 8.0 shows a more intense fruit profile in dry aroma than 7.0, with dense aromas like guava, jackfruit, apricot, dried fruit, citrus, and pink floral notes. On the palate, you can feel the interwoven sweetness and acidity of multiple fruits such as dried mango, jackfruit, orange, and passion fruit, with a clear juicy quality and a round mouthfeel. As the temperature drops slightly, the fresh sweetness of white peach and the bright acidity of berries begin to emerge, and after swallowing you can feel a sweet aftertaste like drinking black tea, with very rich layers.

The reason Geisha has won the affection of countless coffee people is that, unlike the strong black coffee in traditional impressions, it is more like a fresh flower-and-fruit tea. With rich fragrance and complex fruit flavors, it reminds people of a series of unusual aromas. At different temperatures, you can feel a delicate texture and sweet-and-sour fruitiness filling the entire mouth. Geisha's extraordinary flavor characteristics are enough to make it what many coffee people call the "ceiling".

Nowadays, besides Panama, we can also drink Geisha coffee from countries such as Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Colombia, and Guatemala in many coffee shops, each with its own unique flavor profile. If you are tasting Geisha coffee for the first time, Front Street suggests starting with the Panama producing region, where Geisha became famous. Coffee estates in Panama have more experience growing the Geisha variety, and their distinctive Geisha flavor is also more representative.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.