World Coffee Estate Introduction | The Charm of Ethiopia's Gesha Village Estate - The Birthplace of Gesha

FrontStreet Coffee - Introduction to Ethiopia Gesha Village Estate

The Origin of Gesha Village Estate

In 2007, documentary filmmaker Adam Overton and his photographer wife Rachel Samuel were shooting a documentary about Ethiopian coffee for the Ethiopian government when they came into contact with the Gera coffee forest in the Bench Maji region. During that work, they conceived the idea of establishing their own coffee estate and brand.

In 2009, they had the good fortune to meet Willem Boot, the renowned owner of the Don Pachi estate and a BOP judge. Willem Boot's vision gave the Overtons an opportunity: to return to Ethiopia and find the birthplace of Gesha.

Eventually they arrived in Bench Maji, a region in southwestern Ethiopia near South Sudan, where many places are called Gesha Village, making it the most likely area in which to find the original Gesha.

Adam followed Willem Boot on an adventure through the forests surrounding the estate, where they discovered multiple wild tree species in a jungle magically enveloped by dense forest. To their greatest delight, they found wild Gesha.

Later they learned that this was the Gori Gesha forest, the place where the Gesha variety was first discovered. So they collected seeds from the native Gesha trees, selected from them, and then planted them at Gesha Village. They decided to establish the estate here and named it Gesha Village Coffee Estate, a 500-hectare coffee farm located about 12 miles from the Gori Gesha forest.

Unlike the vast majority of Ethiopian farms, Gesha Village is not a small farm but a large 500-hectare farm with its own washing station and laboratory. The entire farm plants only the Gesha variety, rather than the generally indeterminate Ethiopian native varieties.

Gesha Village Coffee Varieties

Gesha Village grows three varieties, named after the expedition teams that discovered the coffee: Gesha 1931, Gori Gesha, and Illubabor, the last provided by the Ethiopian Coffee Research Center.

Gesha 1931 was confirmed by observing the plant's morphology, bean shape and size, and its cupping profile; it is the closest to the mother plant of Panama Gesha. The Gori Gesha heirloom variety was collected by the Gesha Village estate owner in 2011 through their own expedition from the Gori Gesha wild coffee forest, 20 kilometers from the current Gesha Village farm, and no duplicate samples have been found elsewhere.

From the beginning, the owners of Gesha Village collected wild Gesha seeds from the Gori Gesha forest for planting and cultivation. After 7 years of continuous effort, they steadily extended outward to reclaim remote wilderness forests, and the 500-hectare Gesha Village Coffee Farm was born in this woodland.

Unlike the vast majority of Ethiopian farms, Gesha Village is not a small farm but a large 500-hectare farm with its own washing station and laboratory. The entire farm plants only the Gesha variety, rather than the generally indeterminate Ethiopian native varieties.

Gesha Village's Quality Control and Coffee Bean Grades

Gesha Village is divided into eight small farms, which they call blocks.

At Gesha Village, every step of planting and processing strives for uncompromising quality. They carefully select each batch through strict cupping processes at their coffee laboratory in Addis Ababa, following SCA official standards, and conduct strict grading to ensure buyers receive the highest-quality coffee beans. In the end, from extremely high-end and delicious treasures to the exquisite blended Chaka, the coffee is divided into four grades and offered to coffee markets worldwide. Their approach is that every batch, under a single label, can be traced back to detailed information about the beans.

Gesha Village has a strict internal grading system covering the Auction, Gold Label, Red Label, Green Label, and Chaka batches. Since our editors currently have a deeper understanding of the Gold Label, Red Label and Chaka batches, we will give more detailed introductions to the cupping profiles, flavors and brewing methods of these three later.

Gold Label

Gold Label accounts for only 5% of Gesha Village's annual production and can almost be described as being on the same level as the auction batches. Competition participants from around the world typically choose these batches; at the WBC World Championship held in the Netherlands in 2018, for example, the Australian and Japanese champions selected Gold Label batches to compete.

Roasters with high quality requirements also make purchases. With complete traceability, each batch has an outstanding flavor and high complexity, making it the estate's second-best grade after the auction batches.

Red Label

Batches with complete traceability, possessing typical Gesha Village flavors, with flavor intensity and complexity slightly weaker than the Gold Label batches, making them single-origin batches with very high value for money.

Chaka

This is a Gesha coffee blend produced by Gesha Village, which includes three varieties: Gori Gesha, Gesha 1931, and Illubabor (an Ethiopian native disease-resistant variety).

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FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Gesha Village's strict internal grading makes it possible to taste this famous Ethiopian estate at several levels. FrontStreet's Gesha Village Gold Label is a Gesha 1931 lot and one of the estate's top coffees outside the auction, frequently chosen by competition baristas. It is processed with a refined natural method, and the cup is complex and generous: an unusual dry aroma, and a slurp and aftertaste that stay with you long after the sip.

FrontStreet's Gesha Village Red Label belongs to the Gori Gesha variety and is a single-terroir series, so every lot carries complete traceability information, including the farm block name, the coffee variety and the processing date. It is a more affordable way to explore the estate's signature Gesha character while still knowing exactly where the beans came from.

For a smaller, more focused expression from Ethiopia, FrontStreet's Genlana Gesha comes from a Genlana Gesha farm in Yirgacheffe and is a rare estate that grows only a single variety, farming 700 hectares split across the Kochore and Genlana Abaya areas. The cherries are hand-picked fully ripe and dried on raised beds for 14 to 20 days depending on the weather. Roasted medium-light, it shows a bright citrus acidity, an elegant ginger flower aroma and the full sweetness of ripe fruit, with a fine, silky body and the delicate finish that marks the Gesha variety.