GESHA MARCELA | Colombia | Gesha | 200g

Gesha

This coffee was planted at El Vergel back in 2016, there is both green and bronze tip Gesha (which have subtle differences in flavour), and 2 further variations of each have been discovered and categorised too. The original seeds are rumoured to be from the infamous Hartmann Estate, one of Panama’s finest producers of Gesha, this heritage and level of quality is immediately obvious.

 

Much like the slopes of Panama, El Vergel Estate sits on an inactive volcano in the mountains of Tolima. Planted at the highest point of the estate which is around 1800masl, the soil and climate here provides excellent nutrition and conditions for Gesha to flourish.

The beautiful floral attributes and complexity that Gesha is famous for, tend to be most expressive when the coffee is grown at high altitudes, these growing conditions extend the cherries maturation time, developing more sugars.

 

Gesha Marcela is a labour of love, with multiple steps to the processing, fermentation and drying of the coffee.

Firstly after hand harvesting, the coffee is ‘floated’ in water. This rinses the cherries of any leaves, sticks or dirt, but importantly will cause any unripe or overripe cherries that may not have been visible to float, ensuring that over 95% is perfectly matured before proceeding to fermentation.

 

The whole cherries are placed into a temperature regulated stainless steel tank, flushed with carbon dioxide and then pressurised to around 5 bars. With cool water flowing through the tanks walls, temperatures are kept below 22c for up to 70 hours. This carbonic maceration process is monitored by pH levels, ensuring no over-fermentation occurs. 

 

Once fermentation is complete, the coffee is sun dried intermittently with a number of thermal shocks or stalls at precise moisture levels. This has an expanding and contracting effect on the coffee's cell structure, with the aim to drive as much flavour back into the seed as possible. The coffee is transferred into sealed bags, and stored in a cool dark room for these stalls, before being laid back out onto raised beds for the next drying phase. In total, this Gesha takes more than 60 days to produce.

 

Elias and Shady describe the important balance between variety and terroir, ensuring that the characteristics of each are preserved but the coffee has as much of its own personality and vibrance as possible . Their Gesha and carbonic maceration techniques create a unique example of exactly that balance; intense floral aromas, complex fruit notes and fine acidity that we love from the Gesha variety, with a distinct sugary sweetness and long lingering finish we love about the region.

 

200 g