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

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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, while shooting a documentary about Ethiopian coffee for the Ethiopian government, came into contact with the Gera coffee forest in the Bench Maji region. During this process, they conceived the idea of establishing their own coffee estate and brand.

In 2009, they had the good fortune to meet the renowned Don Pachi estate owner and BOP judge Willem Boot. Willem Boot's vision provided the Overton couple with an opportunity: 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 to find the original Gesha.

Adam followed Willem Boot on an "adventure" in 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 in Gesha Village. They decided to establish the estate here and named it Gesha Village Coffee Estate, a 475-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 has three varieties, named after the names of the expedition teams that discovered the coffee: Gesha1931, Gori Gesha, and Illubabor provided by the Ethiopian Coffee Research Center.

Gesha1931 was confirmed by observing the plant's morphology, bean shape, 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 continuously extended outward to reclaim remote wilderness forests, and the 471-hectare Gesha Village Coffee Farm was born in this woodland.

In fact, 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. Finally, from extremely high-end and delicious treasures to exquisite blended Chaka, they are divided into four grades in total, providing them to coffee markets worldwide. Their approach is that every batch, with one label, can be traced back to detailed information about these beans.

Gesha Village has a strict internal grading system, which includes Auction, Gold Label, Red Label, Green Label, and Chaka batches. However, since the editor currently has a deeper understanding of the Gold Label, Red Label, and Chaka batches, the editor will provide more detailed introductions to these three batches' cupping profiles, flavors, and their brewing methods later.

Gold Label

Gold Label accounts for only 5% of Gesha Village's annual production and can almost be said to be works of the same level as auction batches. Competition participants from around the world typically choose these batches—for example, at the WBC World Championship held in the Netherlands in 2018, 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 outstanding flavor and high complexity, making it the estate's second-best grade after auction batches.

Red Label

Batches with complete traceability, possessing typical Gesha Village flavors, with flavor intensity and complexity slightly weaker than 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 (Ethiopian native disease-resistant variety).

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