Are Gesha Village Gesha Coffee Beans Expensive_ Gesha Village Gesha Coffee Bean Auction Lot Selection Process

The Rise of Gesha Village Coffee Estate

In recent years the increasingly popular Gesha Village Coffee Estate has begun holding its own auctions. So what makes this estate - which claims to come from the homeland of Geisha - so outstanding that it draws crowds of green-bean buyers to compete for its lots?

The Discovery of Gesha Forest

In the border region between Ethiopia and Kenya lies the Gesha Forest, where the Geisha variety was discovered in 1931. It was later cultivated and spread to Panamanian estates, and since 2004 this Geisha variety has been unbeatable in major coffee competitions, its elegant, unique flavor impossible to forget. The variety is known as 1931 Geisha, commonly called Panamanian Geisha.

A Dream Born from a Documentary

While the coffee world was swept up in this trend, American documentary director Adam Overton and his Ethiopian photographer wife Rachel Samuel were commissioned in 2007 to shoot a film about coffee in Ethiopia. As filming progressed they came into deep contact with the Ethiopian land and its people, and fell in love with both the coffee and the country. The dream of establishing their own estate gradually took root.

Establishing Gesha Village Coffee Estate

Adam and Rachel searched for suitable land for three years, looking further and further from the city and into forest areas. Guided by local people, they traveled to the forest homeland of Geisha. The area sits in Bench Maji, a two-day drive from the capital, Addis Ababa. Despite the long journey, when the pair first saw the stunning beauty of the place, their fatigue turned to joy, and they decided to establish their estate here - naming it Gesha Village Coffee Estate.

Discovering the Original Geisha

Around that time the two met Willem Boot, an estate owner who had just bought La Mula in 2009 to grow Geisha, and then traveled to Panama to learn from him about cultivating the variety. When Willem visited the newly founded Gesha Village Estate in 2011, he and Adam searched together for suitable varieties to plant. In the nearby Gori Gesha Forest they were delighted to find a variety quite similar in form to 1931 Geisha, with a rich, enchanting jasmine fragrance filling the forest. Estate owner Adam boldly speculated that the Geisha here was the original parent variety of 1931 Geisha. Later, Willem Boot invited American botany experts to compare this variety genetically with Panamanian Geisha, and found that the two were not only similar in form but also very close genetically.

Sustainable Estate Management

Today the estate holds 475 hectares of coffee plantation, with planting density kept at 2000 coffee trees per hectare. In the first three years of establishing the estate, thirty thousand shade trees were planted to keep the coffee trees' sun exposure in balance and preserve the area's ecological diversity. Because they maintain the local ecology and have built good relationships with residents, they also established the Gesha Village Foundation to give back to the community and promote education through two schools near the estate. These efforts have made local residents very friendly and supportive of the estate.

Auction System and Featured Coffee

After more than five years of work, Gesha Village Coffee Estate set up its own auction system three years ago. The lot selected for you here marks the return home of 1931 Geisha, grown in the Surma region of Bench Maji. With delicate floral notes, elegant tropical fruit flavors, and a fine honey-like sweetness, this is the wonderful taste that FrontStreet Coffee and Gesha Village Estate want to share with you.

Auction Batch Selection Process

Lots of coffee beans are sent to laboratories in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and to Willem Boot's laboratory in California, USA, for initial selection.

All cupping sessions follow the standard procedures of the Specialty Coffee Association. Every coffee entering the auction competition passes through at least six consecutive elimination rounds before being selected as an auction-batch coffee.

Gesha Village Coffee Bean Brand Recommendation

FrontStreet Coffee's roasted Gesha Village coffee beans - Gesha Village Natural Geisha Coffee - fully guarantee brand and quality. More importantly, the value is extremely strong: a 100-gram bag costs only 150 yuan. At 15 grams per cup of single-origin coffee, one bag makes 6 cups, working out to only about 25 yuan per cup. Compared with cafés selling a single cup for hundreds of yuan, this is an excellent proposition.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If Gesha Village's natural Gesha is your target, FrontStreet also offers the estate's Gold Label and Red Label lots. The Gold Label is the 1931 Geisha variety, accounting for 10% of Gesha Village's total output and representing the estate's top coffee outside the auction - often chosen by competition baristas. Refined natural processing gives it a complex, rich cup, with a distinctive dry aroma and a long, lingering finish. The Red Label is the Gori Gesha variety, 15% of production, scoring 88 or above on the SCA 100-point scale, and as a single-terroir series every lot number carries full traceability, including farm block, variety, and processing date.

For a more approachable way into the variety, start with FrontStreet Boquete Gesha. As an entry-level Gesha from Panama, it delivers the classic Panamanian orange-blossom honey character at a friendly price, with an oolong-tea texture, delicate fruit sweetness, and clearly separated layers.

And if you'd like to explore an Ethiopian single-variety estate, FrontStreet Grana Gesha comes from the Grana Gesha farm in Yirgacheffe - a rare estate that grows only one variety. Hand-picked ripe cherries are dried on raised beds for 14-20 days depending on the weather, and a medium-light roast brings out bright citrus acidity, elegant ginger-lily aromatics, ripe-fruit sweetness, and the refined finish that defines Gesha.

To brew Gesha, grind to about a fine-sugar size - roughly 78% passing a China standard No. 20 sieve - and use water around 91°C. FrontStreet uses 15g of coffee, a small Hario V60, and a 1:16 ratio, with a three-stage pour: pour to 30g and bloom for 30s, then a slow circling pour to 125g, wait until the bed is half drained, then continue a slow circling pour to 225g for a total extraction time of about 2 minutes 10 seconds to 2 minutes 20 seconds.