While Jamaican Blue Mountain and Hawaiian Kona have long occupied the coffee throne, a dark horse from Ethiopia's native forests—Geisha—is rewriting the landscape of specialty coffee with hurricane force. This article takes you through Geisha's legendary journey from its discovery in 1931 to its dazzling rise at Panama's Hacienda La Esmeralda, detailing its glorious record of eleven championship victories and record-breaking auction prices. Through practical tests of both pour-over and siphon brewing methods, we deeply analyze this bean's signature lemon-citrus aroma, honey-cream sweetness, and layer upon layer of oolong tea notes. Front Street Coffee will also share roasting and brewing insights to help you fully understand this green diamond capable of impressing even the most discerning connoisseurs.

For a long time, the standards for judging top-tier coffee largely followed Japanese trends, with Jamaican Blue Mountain and Hawaiian Kona respectively hailed as the "King and Queen" of the coffee world. However, as processing standards in various producing countries continue to improve and information exchange becomes increasingly convenient, we are fortunate to encounter more and more specialty coffees, and Panama Geisha is precisely the new-generation champion that has risen in recent years.

Geisha Variety Origins:

The Geisha variety was first discovered in 1931 in the Geisha forest of Ethiopia, then sent to the Kenya Coffee Research Institute; in 1936 it was introduced to Uganda and Tanzania, in 1953 Costa Rica began importing it, and in Panama during the 1970s, Mr. Francisco Serracin of Duncan Estate obtained seeds from CATIE in Costa Rica, thus beginning Geisha's cultivation history in Panama.

Geisha swept through the coffee world like a hurricane. This revolution came with fierce momentum, and even Jamaican Blue Mountain and Hawaiian Kona, which had long sat securely on the coffee kingdom's throne, had to yield somewhat. This wild variety native to Ethiopia, after weathering countless competition baptisms, has now spread across all major coffee-producing regions, and its most brilliant ambassador is Panama's "La Esmeralda" estate.

History of Hacienda La Esmeralda:

In 1924, Swede Hans Elliott founded Hacienda La Esmeralda, which was originally not a coffee farm but a cattle ranch. Forty years later in 1964, Mr. Daniel Peterson's grandfather, Mr. Rudolph Peterson, purchased Hacienda La Esmeralda to have a place to settle after retirement. Grandfather Rudolph Peterson was born in Sweden and had served as president of Bank of America and director of the United Nations Development Programme;

His son, Mr. Price Peterson, moved from California to Panama in 1973 to take over the management of his father's estate. In 1987, he converted most of the estate to coffee cultivation, and in 1994, he invested in purchasing precision coffee processing equipment to establish a brand. While Mr. Price Peterson and his wife Susan were getting the coffee estate on track, they also raised three children: Eric (born in Philadelphia in 1966), Rachel (born in Sweden in 1967), and Daniel (born in Panama in 1974).

In 1996, Price and Rachel visited a farm for sale in the Jaramillo area of Boquete Valley, and were so captivated by its beauty that they bought it on the spot. This was Hacienda La Esmeralda·Jaramillo, and it was here that their third son, Mr. Daniel Peterson, cultivated the Geisha coffee that would astonish the coffee world!

Geisha (pronounced the same as the Japanese word for "geisha," hence also called Geisha coffee) was originally planted in just a small section of the estate as a windbreak, because its trees grow taller than ordinary coffee trees. The estate owner's son, in order to participate in the annual Best of Panama coffee competition, searched throughout the estate testing all coffee varieties, which gave Geisha its chance to shine on stage; thereafter it also participated in various international coffee competitions, winning a total of eleven championships.

- Champion: Best of Panama (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007)

- Champion: SCAA Roasters Guild Cupping Pavilion (2005, 2006, 2007)

- Champion: Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality (2004, 2006, 2007, 2008)

Such a brilliant record makes Geisha shine like a green diamond, highly recognized in the international coffee auction market, repeatedly setting high-price records.

- Best of Panama 2004 Auction: $21/pound

- Best of Panama 2005 Auction: $20/pound

- Best of Panama 2006 Auction: $50/pound

- Best of Panama 2007 Auction: $130/pound

In the following two years, 2008 and 2009, Esmeralda held its first single-estate auction, categorizing estate products by harvest region or time and opening them directly to buyers from around the world for bidding. The highest auction prices in 2008/2009 once again broke through the hundred-dollar mark!

- Esmeralda Special 2008 Auction: $105/pound

- Esmeralda Special 2009 Auction: $117/pound

Here's a real shot of the green beans

A very beautiful blue-green color, with a warm, jade-like texture.

It smells of fresh grass, peach, berry notes, and an oolong tea aroma that most coffee beans don't possess. When friends from Taiwan came to taste it today, they said that in their region this is called the milky-sweet aroma unique to tea leaves. It seems that aromas and flavors really require associative imagination, but the subtle tea note is something we can clearly perceive.

To highlight this bean's characteristics and aroma, I roast to the brink of second crack. The brink of second crack and the first pop of second crack are also roasting levels I commonly use, as mentioned earlier, they better bring out the bean's inherent characteristics. Too light will produce off-flavors, too dark will deplete the floral aroma and fruit acidity. Of course, this also needs to be adjusted according to the characteristics of the coffee beans and the roaster's understanding of the beans themselves.

Real photo of roasted beans

I generally call this "sexy wrinkles." Most beans with these wrinkles are roasted to highlight their original flavor and fruit acidity, but if the green beans themselves are not of high quality, some off-flavors will emerge, such as decayed earthy notes, grassy notes, and astringent dryness. These flavors are what roasters should try their best to avoid.

The roasted Geisha has a captivating lemon-citrus aroma and an ultra-sweet honey-cream flavor.

Since I have quite a lot of equipment on hand, I also used multiple brewing methods to gain a more comprehensive understanding of this bean.

Using pour-over extraction:

Dose: 30g

Water temperature: 85°C

Extraction volume: 300cc

Grinding tool: Big Flying Eagle (ghost-tooth burr)

Grind setting: 3.5 (grinder settings may not be consistent even for the same brand and model; the setting is for reference only)

Equipment used: V60 conical ceramic dripper, unbleached filter paper, long-spout gooseneck pour-over kettle with thermometer

Taste: Probably because of the Ethiopian bean origin, the first sip has a hint of Yirgacheffe, but instantly a strong fruit acidity emerges, then floral aromas, spices, cinnamon, mint, and a large amount of aroma come surging out and rush into the nasal cavity. The aroma's tension is very strong and its energy is powerful, with far-reaching rhythm and layer upon layer of flavor, leaving an endless aftertaste. Perhaps I'm using too many rhetorical words, but the facts are indeed so. Having drunk my way through Blue Mountain, Kona, Kopi Luwak, and other specialty coffees, my palate has become somewhat picky. Around this time last year, I even complained to friends that I hadn't had a bean that amazed me in a long time. And this cup of Geisha is enough to impress a coffee connoisseur.

Next is siphon extraction

Dose: 25g

Extraction volume: 320cc

Grinding tool: Big Flying Eagle

Grind setting: 3 (because I'm using filter paper rather than the conventional cloth filter, the grind needs to be slightly coarser; the biggest advantage of using filter paper is that it won't absorb odors from repeated use)

Water temperature: around 92°C (siphon water temperature is not particularly stable; temperature is for reference only)

Siphon brand: Japanese Hario 3-cup

Extraction time: 40 seconds

During the brewing process, the entire room was filled with a strong aroma. When drinking, the maltose sweetness is more prominent, and the acidity and aroma are denser and more concentrated, but the tension and layers are not as far-reaching as pour-over, and the flavor seems relatively tight. Personally, I feel that although this bean tastes good brewed with a siphon, the effect is only average.

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