Producer: Hacienda La Esmeralda
Farm: Cañas Verdes
Region: Boquete
Altitude: 1,683 masl | 5,522 feet
Varietal: Gesha
Process: Washed
Roast: Light-Medium
Notes: Apricot, Gardenia, Cantaloupe

Available whole bean in a 50g jar (with gift box) or a 4oz pouch. This coffee roasts and ships on Tuesdays only.

This is one of two high-elevation microlots from the Esmeralda Special collection that we are offering this season, both from the famed Cañas Verdes farm. The Leon lot comprises 4.5 hectares in production, with an average tree age of 10 years. After harvest, the coffee cherries were taken to Hacienda La Esmeralda’s mill in Palmira to be washed and then dried for 16 days on a concrete patio.

Cañas Verdes has a distinct three to four month dry season, but even then, the air is cool. Half of Cañas Verdes is part of the original Peterson holdings, purchased in 1967, which had previously been dedicated to pasture for beef and, later, dairy cattle. Several small growers had grown coffee in this hard-to-reach area for some time. After the rediscovery of the Gesha variety in 2004, the Peterson family began purchasing smaller lots around the original Cañas Verdes farm and expanding production. Since then, many award-winning Esmeralda Gesha lots have come from the hillsides of Cañas Verdes.

We've been proud to offer Geshas from Hacienda La Esmeralda for more than a decade. All of their farms are Rainforest Alliance Certified, attesting to Esmeralda's sustainable practices: reuse of leftover coffee pulp as a fertilizer; forest maintenance along watersheds; timing coffee tree pruning around bird nesting season; use of hydroelectricity and sustainable wood burning to run the coffee mill; and more.

On our most recent visit, in April 2023, our green coffee buyer was impressed by the Petersons' continued spirit of experimentation. They are testing 32 different processes, including combinations of fermentations, yeast inoculations, and drying techniques. Working with a local university, they have begun isolating and culturing native yeasts found at their farms and on coffee cherries, including different genera such as Pichia, Candida, and Saccharomyces. The various yeasts have been used to inoculate coffee fermentations, with the most successful trials increasing the floral and stone fruit qualities inherent to Gesha when compared to commercial alternatives.