Geisha Coffee Bean Flavor Characteristics Story Panama Washed Geisha Coffee Bean Recommendation

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As one of the world's most expensive coffees, Geisha has now spread across the globe. Whenever specialty coffee is mentioned, Panamanian Geisha will always be present. Before understanding Geisha coffee, let's first look at its famous stage: Panama.

Panama Coffee Growing Regions

Panama is located in Central America, with coffee growing areas situated in the western part of the country: Boquet, Volcan, Santa Clara, and Piedra de Candela. Among these, Boquet and Volcan are the specialty coffee regions we hear about most frequently. Both regions are located in Chiriquí Province, right in the center of the coffee belt, featuring fertile volcanic soil and ancient forests.

Boquet is one of the towns in Chiriquí Province, located near the border between Panama and Costa Rica, close to the famous Barú Volcano. It boasts beautiful scenery and rich, fertile soil. Facing the warm, humid monsoon from the Caribbean Sea and backed by the cold Atlantic currents, with high and steep mountains, the "Barú Volcano National Park" is a conservation area with rich biodiversity and seven microclimates. Coupled with year-round mist and abundant rainfall, this creates excellent coffee growing conditions, and many outstanding estates have been established here, such as Hacienda La Esmeralda, Elida Estate, and Duncan Estate.

The Volcan region is known for its ultra-high altitude, with coffee grown at approximately 2,000-3,000 meters above sea level. Early on, most cultivation focused on fruit economic crops, with coffee accounting for only a very small portion. The most representative is the Hartmann family. The Volcan region has less annual rainfall than Boquet, and due to its geographical location on the west side of Barú Volcano, combined with cultivation alongside various fruits, the coffee exhibits stronger fruit flavors, sweetness, and aroma.

Characteristics of Panama's Geisha Variety

The globally popular Panamanian Geisha coffee is renowned for presenting rich, elegant floral aromas, citrus, peach, and complex fruit acidity in the cup, with a creamy smooth mouthfeel and an oolong tea-like sweet aftertaste. Its delicate flavor expression makes one feel as if they're not drinking coffee, but tasting a cup of fragrant fruit tea.

FrontStreet Coffee mentions in many articles that coffee, as an agricultural product, its flavor expression is always closely related to factors such as variety, climate, altitude, soil, and management. It is a natural and authentic expression of the variety and local terroir, while post-processing methods and roasting should aim to maximize the preservation, restoration, and presentation of their most authentic flavors. Therefore, Geisha's excellence is inseparable from the combination of all the above factors.

Compared to other Arabica varieties, Geisha not only has low fruit yield but also particularly fragile plants and is quite picky about its growing environment. It requires high altitude, fertile soil, cloud cover or plant shade, and cannot be directly exposed to harsh sunlight. The leaf system of Geisha coffee trees is very thin, meaning photosynthesis efficiency will be low, and the root system is fragile, with slow absorption of water and nutrients. Therefore, coffee production is very low. Coupled with the high-altitude growing environment, the fruit maturity time will also be relatively late. The fruit yield of one Geisha coffee tree is only half that of the Caturra variety, which is one of the reasons why Geisha is so precious.

The "talent scout" of Geisha, the owner of Hacienda La Esmeralda, once said that the estate needs a large number of shade trees to protect the delicate Geisha from sunlight, and traditional pruning methods must be adopted during the initial planting period, otherwise the plants are prone to death. Geisha planted at higher altitudes requires longer fruit maturation time, resulting in more complex and unique flavor expression. Geisha cherries need to be harvested at the most appropriate maturity and immediately undergo post-processing. This poses a great challenge to the professional judgment of the estate owner and the quality of the estate's workforce; failing to seize the right timing will lead to quality decline and waste.

Washed Boquet Geisha Coffee

After Geisha became famous, various growing regions began to compete to introduce and plant it, but even with the same variety, different terroir and climate will produce different coffee quality and flavor. FrontStreet Coffee believes that as the birthplace of Geisha's fame, Panama's mature planting techniques and processing methods still guarantee industry reputation for Geisha coffee. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee has launched a Geisha coffee from the Boquet region, using washed processing, hoping to let everyone taste the classic Geisha flavor.

The washed process first puts selected coffee cherries into a depulper to initially remove their skin and pulp; the coffee beans with remaining pulp and mucilage are placed in water to ferment for about 24 hours; after fermentation, the parchment-covered coffee beans are placed in flowing water channels to wash away their pulp and mucilage; after washing, the coffee beans are dried or dried with a dryer until the moisture content reaches about 12%. Finally, the parchment is removed from the coffee beans.

As one of the most traditional raw bean processing methods, washing not only makes coffee production quality more stable but also gives Geisha a higher cleanliness and fresher flavor profile. After roasting, FrontStreet Coffee experiences Geisha's elegant white floral aromas, uplifting citrus and lemon acidity, with a slight green tea essence, reminiscent of drinking a soft Tieguanyin tea. How should such rich Geisha coffee flavor be brewed to avoid waste?

FrontStreet Coffee's Brewing Recommendations

The flavor descriptions of each coffee at FrontStreet Coffee are based on freshly roasted beans. If coffee beans have been stored for more than a month, some aroma may have been lost, making it difficult to reproduce the original flavor through brewing. FrontStreet Coffee is also well aware of the importance of freshness, so we ensure that only coffee beans roasted within 5 days are shipped, allowing everyone to enjoy the most complete flavor period upon receipt.

Geisha coffee's flavor is world-renowned for its rich floral aromas and complex fruit notes. FrontStreet Coffee's roasters hope to preserve more of Geisha's quality acidity, so they choose medium-light roast (with slight adjustments for different batches). This roast level doesn't significantly change the high hardness of beans grown at high altitude, therefore brewing requires increasing the extraction rate to present fuller flavor layers. This will use higher water temperature and finer grind size to stimulate more aromatic compounds. Additionally, FrontStreet Coffee hopes for clearer flavor expression in Geisha coffee, so we'll use a slightly larger coffee-to-water ratio of 1:16.

To improve Geisha coffee's extraction rate while avoiding over-extraction and highlighting sweet and sour flavor layers, FrontStreet Coffee's baristas use the V60 dripper. The V60 dripper's body features flow ribs connecting the top and bottom and a large circular hole at the center, which speeds up water flow downward. The spiral-shaped air groove design extends the water flow path, increasing the contact time between coffee grounds and hot water. Each water flow converges along the grooves toward the center point of the dripper, concentrating pressure on the coffee grounds and extracting coffee with richer layering.

Below, FrontStreet Coffee demonstrates the brewing steps for washed Boquet Geisha as served in our stores. Everyone can refer to and compare with their own brewing approach.

The pour-over parameters for Red Label Geisha Coffee are: Dripper: V60, Water temperature: 91-92°C, Coffee amount: 15g, Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:16, Grind size: fine sugar size (80% passes through a #20 sieve)

Three-stage extraction: First pour 15g of coffee grounds into the dripper and zero the weight. In the first stage, pour 30g of water for a 30-second bloom, while starting the timer. Use small water flow to pour from the center point outward in circles, ensuring the entire coffee bed is moistened.

In the second stage, use slightly larger water flow to pour 120g of water, aiming to raise the entire coffee bed. The water stream needs to be poured vertically and evenly. At this point, the scale shows 150g, and pouring should be completed in about 55 seconds.

When the liquid level drops to about half, begin using small water flow in small circles to pour the third stage of 90g. Try to control the water flow not to be too large, as this can easily scatter the coffee grounds and cause under-extraction. Finally, the total water poured is 240g, with drip completion time around 2 minutes and 10 seconds. After removing the dripper, shake the coffee liquid in the sharing pitcher evenly and you can begin tasting.

The pour-over Panama washed Boquet Geisha coffee has distinct citrus, lemon, and bergamot clarity in its acidity. Upon swallowing, it presents a creamy smooth mouthfeel, with green tea and honey sweetness in the finish.

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