Panama Hacienda La Esmeralda Geisha Jaramillo

Region: Jaramillo, Boquete

Farm: Hacienda La Esmeralda

Lot: Reina 3NB

Producer: Rachel Peterson

Altitude: 1650-1850 masl

Harvest: 2025

Varietal: Geisha

Process: Natural

Notes: Floral, Blood Orange, Passion Fruit, Melon

Roasted by: Loring S7

Roasted for: Filter

Size: 80g

Shipping: within 14 days after roasting

About the Farm

In 2004, the Peterson family made history as Jaramillo Geisha broke all records for the highest price ever paid for coffee at the Best of Panama auction. The story of Geisha coffee reaches back to 1936, the time of a British colony in Abyssinia, and Captain Richard Whalley, a Consul for the Bench Maji region, who was tasked with collecting 10 pounds of coffee seeds from the area around Geisha Mountain in what is now Ethiopia. How descendants of these Geisha coffee seeds arrived at Hacienda La Esmeralda, and how their unique flavor expressions were discovered, reflects the complex and at times murky history of the global coffee trade.

The Jaramillo mountain air is wet and cold, perfect for making the aromatics of the Geisha variety sing. Though Geisha variety coffees had been planted sporadically across the area, it was a lot separated out from one small region on this farm that led to the rediscovery of Geisha.

The farm rises, 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, hybrids out of Costa Rica and Brazil, and in 1997 the Peterson family decided to plant higher up.

It is these high altitudes that the Geisha’s bright, floral aromatics express themselves. With cooler temperatures and massive shade trees that have been standing for ages, Jaramillo is the perfect place for this variety to grow. To this day many of our top performing microlots of Geisha coffee come from little patches on the slopes of Jaramillo.