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What's the Difference Between Geisha Coffee and Pacamara Coffee? How Should You Drink Geisha and Pacamara?

Published: 2026-01-27 Author: FrontStreet Coffee

Last Updated: 2026/01/27, Geisha and Pacamara Geisha Generally considered, the origin of Geisha is a small town called Gesha in western Ethiopia, first discovered by former British ambassador Richard Whalley. The variety was sent to Kenya and then to a research institute in Tanzania. In 1953, Costa Rica introduced Geisha from Tanzania, and in 1963, Don Pachi Serracin brought the first batch of Geisha to Pa

Geisha

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It is generally believed that the origin of Geisha is a small town called Gesha in western Ethiopia, which was first discovered by former British ambassador Richard Whalley. After being sent to Kenya, the variety was then sent to a research institute in Tanzania. In 1953, Costa Rica introduced Geisha from Tanzania, and in 1963, Don Pachi Serracin brought the first batch of Geisha to Panama.

Geisha has been cultivated in Central America for over 50 years, yet remained obscure for many years. The Geisha coffee tree has an unremarkable appearance, with larger vertical spacing between branches than typical coffee trees, and larger internodal spacing than other varieties. This means that flowering and fruiting are less dense, making it a low-yield variety. Therefore, it was considered to have low economic value and was typically planted on the periphery of coffee farms as a windbreak.

Geisha green coffee beans possess a beautiful blue-green color with a jade-like warm texture. They smell of fresh grass, peaches, berries, and the unique milk-sweet aroma of oolong tea that most coffee beans lack. It seems that aroma and flavor require associative thinking, but the faint tea quality is something we can clearly perceive.

To highlight the characteristics and aroma of this bean, FrontStreet Coffee recommends roasting it to the first crack, which best brings out the bean's inherent qualities. Too light a roast will produce off-flavors, while too dark a roast will damage the floral aroma and fruit acidity. Of course, this should also be adjusted according to the coffee bean's characteristics and the roaster's understanding of the bean itself.

FrontStreet Coffee's Recommended Geisha Brewing Method

Pour-over

Parameters: 15g of coffee grounds, V60 dripper, water temperature 90°C, coffee-to-water ratio 1:15, grind size BG 5R (58% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve).

Technique: Use 30g of water for a 30-second bloom, then quickly inject small streams of water to reach 125g in segments. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 227g and stop. When about to expose the coffee bed, remove the dripper. Starting from the bloom, the total extraction time should be around two minutes.

Flavor:

Floral, tropical fruits, intense sweetness; with proper roasting, they give you the feeling of sipping the fragrance of a fresh flower bouquet. It was originally an ancient native variety from Ethiopia, brought into Costa Rica's coffee experimental garden as a coffee sample and distributed to several small farms for small-scale trial planting.

Pacamara

Pacamara is a hybrid variety artificially cultivated in El Salvador in 1958, with parents being Pacas and Maragogype. Pacamara is formed by combining the first four letters of its "parents": Paca + mara = Pacamara. Pacamara cherries compared to Bourbon cherries. What a giant baby in the coffee world!

The dwarf stature and high yield characteristics of Pacamara come from Pacas, while the large size of the coffee cherries (fruit) is inherited from Maragogype.

Speaking of the Pacamara variety, we need to first introduce the Pacamara estate. In 1984, Eduardo Francisco purchased the Pacamara estate. Eduardo's family had been engaged in coffee cultivation in the Apaneca mountain region since their grandfather's generation, spanning over a hundred years. Eduardo wanted to take a different path from his predecessors and decided to cultivate the new variety Pacamara developed by El Salvador's agricultural technology units. He discovered that this new variety had a large and beautiful appearance, and under excellent terroir conditions, it could exhibit good flavor and aroma.

He discovered what he considered to be a rising star, but little did he expect that the first harvest would be the beginning of a difficult ordeal.

Pacamara beans are extremely large, and during de-pulping and separation at processing plants, they often get stuck in the machine's holes or gaps, requiring frequent machine adjustments for separate processing. Pacamara had limited initial production, and large-seed varieties were rare in El Salvador. Most washing plants lacked experience processing large coffee fruits, let alone preparing larger-mesh sieves. It wasn't until 1990 that the Sociedad Cooperative Ahuasanta signed a contract with Eduardo, solving the wet processing problems. After this, Eduardo used more skilled cultivation techniques, harvested coffee fruits with consistent maturity, and applied careful post-processing treatment, finally allowing Pacamara to shine brightly. 24th place in 2003, 7th place in 2005, and runner-up in 2008.

Meanwhile, in 2004, other coffee farmers in El Salvador and Honduras successively achieved good results in CoE competitions with Pacamara. In 2005, Pacamara took 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 7th places in El Salvador's CoE, and swept the top four in 2006. Starting in 2008, Guatemala's Injerto estate began using Pacamara in competitions, winning CoE championships for three consecutive years, and winning two more championships in 2012-13. In the 2016 "Best of El Salvador 2016" competition, 11 of the top 16 entries were Pacamara, even more impressively, Pacamara swept the top eight positions. Pacamara gained great fame, rivaling the various Geisha varieties that farmers were scrambling to cultivate.

Similar to the situation with Geisha, we cannot judge coffee solely by variety. Mature Pacamara coffee trees will show gradually decreasing yields and occasional flavor instability. They also have high requirements for soil, water, and microclimate. When planted in inappropriate locations, the cleanliness will be slightly poorer and carry undesirable woody flavors. Good coffee also gives us once-in-a-lifetime ultimate experiences.

FrontStreet Coffee's Recommended Pacamara Brewing Method

Recommended Brewing Method: Pour-over

Dripper: Hario V60

Water Temperature: 90°C

Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15

Grind size: BG 5R (58% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve)

Brewing technique: 29g of water for a 32-second bloom, then pour to 120g in segments. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 226g and stop. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the dripper. (Starting from the bloom timing), the total extraction time is one minute fifty-six seconds.

Flavor: Smells of nuts, with plum and passion fruit acidity when hot, carrying some faint fermented fruit aroma. The middle section has creamy sweetness and nutty flavors, while the finish has a green tea sensation with long-lasting sugarcane sweetness. As the temperature drops, citrus acidity emerges with sweet and sour vibrations, and the aftertaste is rose tea fragrance with light brown sugar sweetness.