Luckin Coffee Launches Gesha SOE Coffee! Is Gesha/Geisha Coffee Delicious?

Yesterday, Luckin Coffee's Chief Welfare Officer released a preview announcement.

Before there was even time to read the text, the word "GESHA" in the center of the image immediately caught the writer's eye.

Finally! Luckin is going to feature Gesha coffee beans. Although the company hasn't officially released relevant information yet, based on the word "GESHA" in the text, these beans might come from Ethiopia.

The Gesha vs. Geisha Controversy

There is still controversy over whether the original name of this coffee is "Gesha" or "Geisha." According to Huaizong Han's book "The Fourth Wave of Specialty Coffee Studies," the "i" in Geisha is actually an erroneous extension.

In 1929, to crack down on certain illicit activities, Britain established a consulate in Maji, Ethiopia, and appointed Colonel Richard Whalley as ambassador. Coincidentally, the area under Whalley's jurisdiction on old maps was a region called Gesha, where he began collecting local coffee samples.

In 1931, the Maji Consulate sent the first batch of coffee samples collected from the Gesha region, along with some cultivars purchased from local markets, to British plantations in Kenya. Whalley did not distinguish between the samples collected from the Gesha region and those bought from the market; he mixed them together and labeled them uniformly as "Gesha."

But after completing his mission in 1936, Whalley used the term "Geisha" in his letter to the British minister rather than the "Gesha" that was originally labeled. This led all subsequent breeding literature outside Ethiopia to use "Geisha" to record these samples collected from the Gesha region.

Understanding the Gesha/Geisha Lineage

In reality, whether it's Gesha or Geisha, it is only a matter of phonetic transcription, and the name doesn't specifically refer to the Gesha variety we know today but rather a general term for a lineage. The widely recognized Gesha variety today is actually a member of these lineages, designated Geisha T2722.

Currently, Latin American regions use the term Geisha for their Gesha coffee, while official Ethiopian documents and records of Gesha lineage coffee use Gesha.

The Ethiopian government has also designated the area where Gesha samples were originally collected as Gesha Woreda (Gesha County). Many coffee varieties belonging to the Gesha lineage still grow in the Ethiopian region today.

Luckin's Potential Gesha Source

Besides the fact that the term Gesha is more commonly used in Ethiopian regions, another speculated reason is that Luckin signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with the Ethiopian Embassy last year, committing to purchase 1,000-2,000 tons of specialty coffee beans from Ethiopia annually over the next few years. In reality, Luckin's annual coffee bean purchases from Ethiopia far exceed the amount committed in the agreement.

As its stores continued to expand, Luckin also predicted that its total green bean purchases would increase further in 2022, with expected total annual purchases approaching 20,000 tons, of which Ethiopian coffee beans would exceed 6,000 tons.

In recent years, many coffee growing areas in Latin America have suffered natural disasters of varying degrees. Judging from local Gesha production and Luckin's current sales volume, this might be somewhat challenging.

The Mystery of Luckin's Gesha

Of course, these are just speculations. In the released image caption, Luckin did not reveal specific origin information. It is therefore temporarily impossible to determine whether this Gesha SOE that Luckin is launching is the commonly known Panamanian Geisha, a South American Geisha derived from Panamanian varieties, an Ethiopian-production Geisha, or something else.

- This is what we commonly know as Gesha ↑

From the image itself, though, this bean doesn't appear to be the narrow, elongated type of the famous Panamanian Geisha variety we usually see. So is this a graphic designer's mistake, or does Luckin's Gesha refer to something else? After all, some bloggers have suggested that Hua Kui (Flower Queen) is actually Gesha.

The answer will only be revealed after Luckin's product is launched. Let's wait and see.

Image source: Internet

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If you'd rather not wait to find out, FrontStreet Coffee makes it easy to taste the real thing. FrontStreet's Esmeralda line brings you Panama's benchmark: the Red Label is officially "Esmeralda Special," grown at 1,600-1,800 m with every lot cupping at 90 points or above and carrying its own number because all its beans come from a single small plot—FrontStreet's Red Label, for instance, comes from the Halimi Mill plot—so you can pick the lot whose fine flavors suit you. The Green Label, originally "Private Collection," blends several plots rather than stressing detailed plot information, chiefly expressing the estate's signature high-altitude Geisha profile, and it is the more affordable way in. For a first taste of "Gesha flavor," FrontStreet's Boquete Geisha is the entry-level recommendation: from Panama's most representative specialty region, with pure variety genetics and washed processing, it offers the classic orange-blossom-honey charm with oolong-tea sensation and precise fruit sweetness. If you prefer the brighter, more fruit-acid style of Ethiopia—the birthplace of the lineage—FrontStreet's Grana Estate Geisha comes from a rare single-variety estate at the border of Ethiopia's Kochere and Grana Abaya areas, hand-picked and sun-dried on raised beds for 14-20 days depending on the weather; roasted light-medium, it shows bright citrus acidity, elegant ginger-lily florals, and ripe-fruit sweetness with a silky, delicate Geisha finish. As always, Geisha's dense structure benefits from a grind of 78% passing a China No. 20 sieve (about caster-sugar size) and 91°C water, brewed at a 1:16 ratio with a three-pour method finishing around 2:10-2:20.