About this Coffee
Discover the coffee that changed the industry, Hacienda La Esmerelda is iconic for having rediscovered Geisha in 2004. It was a happenstance of altitude and lot separation that discovered Geisha’s amazing flavors and aromatics. We have a long time relationship with the Peterson’s, these Geisha microlots coffee collection are sold exclusively by direct trade. Since 2004 the Peterson family have worked hard to create the infrastructure that supports a Geisha production, that consistently delivers the attributes that made the world fall in love with this special coffee variety.
Jacinta lot in Hacienda La Esmeralda’s Cañas Verdes farm. After harvest, the coffee cherries were taken to the coffee mill and slow dried on raised beds for 47 days and then for additional 14 hours on concrete patio. Jacinta 4SN has notes of jasmine, bananas, grapes and pears.
Cañas Verdes has a distinct three to four months dry season, but even then the air is cool. Half of Cañas Verdes is part of the original Peterson holdings purchased in 1967, with the land first dedicated to pasture of beef and, later, dairy cattle. There had been coffee grown in the area, with a few households up in this hard to reach region. After the rediscovery of Geisha, the Peterson family began purchasing smaller lots around the original Cañas Verdes farm and expanding their Geisha production. Since then, many award-winning Esmeralda Geisha lots have come from the mountains of Cañas Verdes.
The farm jumps up from rolling hills on its lower part to steep 40 degree inclines higher up, making harvesting a manual and challenging affair. There had been coffee planted on the lower parts of the farm – as many as 15 different sub-varieties, little hybrids out of Costa Rica and Brazil, and in 1997 the Peterson family decided to plant higher up.
It is these high altitudes that really make the Geisha’s bright, floral aromatics express themselves. With cooler temperatures and massive shade trees that have been standing for ages, it turns out that Jaramillo is the perfect place for this variety to have landed. To this day many of our top performing microlots of Geisha coffee come from little patches on the slopes of Jaramillo.
Esmeralda Special Geisha is a collection of high elevation Geisha are with cupping scores of over 90 points. Coming mostly from our Jaramillo and Cañas Verdes farms, Esmeralda Special Geisha lots are invariably the highest quality Geishas we sell. Though altitude presents challenges for growing and harvesting, it is up in the mountains of Boquete that the unique floral and citrus aromatics of geisha coffee sing brightest. Esmeralda Special Geisha is available both washed and natural processed and ranges in size all the way down to less than one bag of green coffee. Therefore, extra care must be taken to process these small amounts.
arvesting is the challenging art of picking just the ripest coffee cherries from the coffee trees, while making sure not to disturb any under-ripe cherries that have not yet developed their full flavor potential. This attention to details requires concentration and commitment from our pickers. Because of the premium we receive from our Geisha coffees, we are able to pay our harvesters three times the standard price, ensuring that their livelihood is sustainable and their work is immaculate.
Careful harvesting is a critical step in producing high quality coffee with complex taste profiles. If beans are picked unripe their full potential will not be unlocked, and even a few beans can substantially affect the flavor profile of our microlots.
This sensitivity has become apparent to us thanks to our rigid lot separation, another aspect of our careful approach to harvesting. By carefully dividing each lot as it is picked, we can target specific clusters of trees and times of harvesting with high accuracy, allowing us to build unique microlots for our most quality-conscious buyers. The farm is planted from 1,600-1,900 masl, though the land continues up the mountain all the way to 2,900 masl, where there is a nature reserve home to the famous Quetzal and other endangered birds.