Coffee is native to the southwestern highlands of Ethiopia, near the South Sudanese border. In the 1930s a seed collecting expedition was commissioned by the Kenyan Director of Agriculture. The wild coffee forests of Ethiopia, being the birthplace of Arabica coffee, are rich in genetic diversity. The purpose of the expedition was to find coffee accessions that were appropriate for cultivation throughout the British Colonies. As cup profile (i.e. flavor) was of little-to-no consideration at the time, productivity and resistance to disease were the primary considerations when searching for appropriate varieties. As an eventual result of this expedition, coffee from the Gesha region of southwest Ethiopia made its way to Costa Rica via Tanzania and eventually ended up on a farm that came to be owned by the Peterson family in Boquete, Panama.

Nearly 75 years after that seed collection expedition, the Gesha variety was famously brought into the spotlight during the 2004 Best of Panama competition, where a gesha variety separation from Esmeralda bewitched the international panel of judges and shattered previous records for the highest price ever paid for coffee at auction. It has remained in said spotlight since, enjoying nearly 20 years as the world’s pre-eminent specialty coffee variety.

This superlative wet processed gesha, from the León plot of the 2023 harvest at Hacienda la Esmeralda’s Cañas Verdes Farm, was purchased from the Esmeralda Special collection: the finest microlots of the harvest that the Peterson family offers for purchase outside of auction. The coffee is truly a study of elegance, with a delicate, tea-like mouthfeel and beautifully nuanced flavors that linger memorably on the palate