How do coffee bean grades work at Panama's 90+ Geisha Estate?

Panama's Eleta coffee takes its name from Ninety Plus (90+), founded by Joseph Brodsky in Ethiopia in 2006. He built experimental processing experience there, then established the 90+ Gesha Estate in Panama in 2009. The estate sorts harvested green beans batch by batch by variety and climate, and designs storage and processing plans for each lot.

The coffee bean grades and lots reflect patented methods such as Red, Ruby, and Solkiln, described with combinations like N2-W2-H2, plus the LevelUp sub-brand. In 2019 the company added land near the Baru volcano, named 90+ Baru Estates, where recent eruptions left fertile soil and strong growing conditions. Many coffee bean names, including Nekisse and Juliette, come from a barista's first impression.

Where does the name of Panama's Eleta coffee come from? How are Panama coffee beans graded? This article begins with the founding story of Ninety Plus (90+), walking you through how Joseph Brodsky built up experimental processing experience in Ethiopia and then established the 90+ Gesha Estate in Panama in 2009. It also covers patented processing methods such as Red, Ruby, and Solkiln, along with the flavor profiles of the LevelUp sub-brand series, and includes a detailed profile of 90+ Gesha from Panama's Volcán region. Front Street Coffee will also recommend noteworthy beans in the article.

Ninety Plus

Ninety Plus (90+) was founded by Joseph Brodsky in Ethiopia in 2006. In 2007, the brand's first publicly unveiled coffees stunned many coffee lovers with their long, lingering finish. Such outstanding flavors come from meticulous control at every stage—intervening from the moment farmers plant the seeds, then sorting the harvested green beans batch by batch according to variety, climate, timing, and other conditions, and designing a dedicated storage and processing plan for each lot, resulting in coffee of exceptionally high quality.

During his time in Ethiopia, Joseph Brodsky kept trying to find a variety that could surpass Geisha, but never succeeded. Since he couldn't beat Geisha at the variety level, he decided to use Geisha as the base and elevate it to produce the finest Geisha possible. And the experimental processing experience he accumulated during those years in Ethiopia was exactly what 90+ excels at. In 2009, Joseph Brodsky founded the 90+ Gesha Estate, Ninety Plus Gesha Estate, in Panama.

Red, Ruby, and Solkiln (SK) are all patented special processing methods of Ninety Plus; in addition, they use combinations like N2-W2-H2 to describe a coffee's processing method.

Ninety Plus's baristas name their coffees based on their first impression upon encountering each work—names like Nekisse, and our Juliette: elegant, romantic. Names such as Drima Zede and Danch Meng, meanwhile, come from local dialect or direct English translations.

In 2019, they also purchased a plot of land near the Barú volcano, naming it "90+ Barú Estates." The name comes from Panama's famous Barú volcano, and recent eruptions have made the surrounding soil exceptionally fertile, creating excellent growing conditions for coffee.

Sidamo's coffee flavors are extremely rich. The area contains multiple soil types, microclimates, and countless native coffee varieties; the region features towering mountains, highlands, plateaus, valleys, and plains, with diverse terrain. Geologically, it is nutrient-rich, well-draining volcanic soil, with a soil depth of nearly two meters and topsoil that is dark brown or brown. The area's greatest advantage lies in the fact that soil fertility is maintained through the cycling of organic matter—fallen leaves from surrounding trees and plant residues all become natural fertilizer.

Ninety Plus Drima Zede

Name origin: Drima Zede (the name of this Yirgacheffe) means "Best Approach" in the local dialect. According to information provided by the producer, this Yirgacheffe is a specially crafted product series that 90+ developed based on years of experience. Natural processing is an ancient method that usually struggles to achieve clean, pure flavors, but with 90+'s technical support, Drima Zede selects only the ripest coffee cherries by hand, and during the natural drying process the beans are constantly turned and stirred to ensure consistency. The final product has a transparent, pure mouthfeel with dramatic changes across temperatures, and the aromas of fruit, flowers, and oak barrel are utterly captivating.

Origin: Ninety Plus Ethiopia SNNP, Sidama region

Altitude: 1750m-2000m

About LevelUp

LevelUp is a sub-brand of the specialty green bean processing company NinetyPlus, jointly launched by the company and green bean trader BodhiLeaf, and belongs to the Ethiopian green bean series. The beans are not named after their origin but rather by flavor. These names all come from local Ethiopian languages and describe each bean's distinctive flavor. It retains the stunning flavor performance of 90+ while being more affordably priced.

Ninety Plus Danch Meng

Name origin: Danch Meng is actually a product of NINETY PLUS's sub-brand LevelUp, jointly launched by the company and green bean trader Bodhi Leaf, and released in 2013. Danch Meng transliterates locally as "Perfect approach," grown by smallholders in Yirgacheffe's Chelena Abaya Dumeso, and released against the backdrop of NINETY PLUS's professional flavor-processing expertise. With 90+'s natural processing technique, Danch Meng presents a very distinctive Yirgacheffe flavor.

Flavor: cocoa, black raspberry, plum, juicy, floral aroma, blueberry, dark chocolate

DerarEla | Dreamer

Flavor: richer aromatics, abundant tropical fruit, lime aroma, distinctive chamomile fragrance

LomiTasha | Lomi Tasha

Flavor: soft lemon, honey, wild ginger blossom, delicate green tea mouthfeel

Faya Deraro | DerarEla

Flavor: blueberry, strawberry cookie, cherry, white wine, raspberry

Nitsu Ruz | Rosemary Freshness

Flavor: floral, lemon zest, lychee, prune, kumquat, black tea

Country: Panama

Grade: SHG

Region: Volcán

Estate: Ninety Plus

Altitude: 1400-1800 meters

Processing method: 90+ special processing

Variety: Geisha

Flavor: bergamot, sweet orange, pineapple, longan, dried fruit, apple

Ninety Plus Coffee founder Joseph Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky, founder of Ninety Plus, realized early on that the world's highest-quality green coffee beans all originate from Ethiopia, and that the diverse flavors presented by the region's many different varieties are in no way inferior to the possibility of brewing a million different fine wines from 10,000 grape varieties.

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