Panama La Esmeralda Estate - Official Coffee Bean Introduction from the Emerald Estate

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Nowadays, when mentioning specialty pour-over coffee, Geisha's presence is undoubtedly essential in everyone's mind. For instance, on FrontStreet Coffee's bean list, there are at least dozens of choices, almost dazzling. But if you want to understand Geisha and taste the classic "Geisha flavor," then FrontStreet Coffee would recommend FrontStreet Coffee's Panama Esmeralda Geisha, because in FrontStreet Coffee's view, Geisha coffee's current high reputation is largely due to the famous Hacienda La Esmeralda.

Hacienda La Esmeralda ~ The Discoverer of Geisha

Hacienda La Esmeralda, also translated as Esmeralda Estate, was purchased by American banker Rudolph Peterson after he retired in 1964 and moved to Panama, located in the Boquete region of western Panama. The Pacific and Atlantic oceans form a typical tropical marine climate, with lingering mist at high altitudes, providing ideal shade conditions for coffee trees here. Fertile volcanic ash soil rich in minerals, abundant rainfall, significant day-night temperature differences, and microclimates created by undulating terrain are all favorable factors that contribute to full coffee flavors. For more stories about Hacienda La Esmeralda, you can visit their official website directly: haciendaesmeralda.com.

Initially, the Geisha variety was introduced to Panama for cultivation as an improvement variety. Due to low yield and average flavor performance at low altitudes, it was not popular among farmers. In the 1960s, Rudolph A. Peterson, planning for his retirement life, purchased Hacienda La Esmeralda in Boquete, primarily for dairy production. In 1973, Peterson's son returned to Boquete to assist his father in managing the farm, began to重视 coffee production, expanded the plantation area within the estate, and introduced more new varieties, including Geisha.

In the 1990s, many coffee trees in the farm suffered from leaf rust disease, but Daniel Peterson noticed that Geisha trees were not severely damaged. Therefore, they decided to transplant the originally mixed-planted Geisha trees to more areas of the farm while increasing their planting altitude. In 2003, the Peterson family finally discovered Geisha's potential. When cupping it for the first time, it showed quite intense white flower aromas, berries, citrus, and bergamot-like aftertaste, with an extremely clean mouthfeel, thus forming a very typical Panama Geisha flavor. Astonished by this, everyone decided to enter it in the 2004 BOP (Best of Panama) competition, where it won multiple consecutive championships.

In 2005, Hacienda La Esmeralda entered Geisha in the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) competition, defeating many star contenders and winning the honor of world-class specialty coffee, sweeping the world championships in 2006 and 2007, thus once again attracting attention from coffee professionals worldwide. Since then, Central and South America and many producing regions have begun to compete in introducing and cultivating Geisha varieties, including Colombia, Guatemala, Bolivia... In recent years, our Yunnan has also seen small quantities of Geisha beans. But if you want to drink classic Geisha flavor, FrontStreet Coffee believes that Geisha from the Panama region is most representative.

What's Special About FrontStreet Coffee's Esmeralda Geisha?

In 2004, it won the Best of Panama competition with Geisha and continuously broke auction price records year after year, thus gaining much attention in the coffee world. Hacienda La Esmeralda "made famous" Geisha and was also the first coffee estate to strictly grade Geisha. Every year's Geisha batches receive industry attention. After Geisha won championship titles, the estate owners, the Peterson siblings, began more systematic management of the Geisha coffee trees in the estate based on altitude, region, and cupping performance.

Broadly, Geisha cultivation areas are divided into three major plots: Cañas Verdes, Jaramillo, and El Velo. To ensure traceability of each coffee batch, Peterson refined each major plot into different smaller plots, so buyers of Geisha coffee can check specific planting plot information through batch numbers.

The Geisha variety was first discovered in the Jaramillo plot. Daniel and his sibling decided to increase Geisha's planting altitude, which also began implementation in this plot. As the discovery and cultivation site of Geisha, Jaramillo became Hacienda La Esmeralda's most famous plot. Jaramillo's average altitude is above 1650 meters. The cool, moist air on the high mountain allows the Geisha coffee here to be full of natural essence and fragrant. Currently, Jaramillo is divided into five small plots: Mario, Noria, Reina, Bosque, and Buenos Aires. Among them, the Mario and Bosque plots have performed excellently in major competitions.

Hacienda La Esmeralda's coffee processing plant is established in Cañas Verdes, located at the foot of Baru Volcano, a twenty-minute drive from Boquete town. Whenever coffee cherries ripen, the estate owners arrange for workers to strictly follow standards, picking fresh fruits only at the best maturity time, with manual picking and selection throughout, then transporting them to the factory for the next screening in the shortest time.

What is Red Label? What is Green Label?

On FrontStreet Coffee's bean list, there are about 10 choices of Geisha coffee alone. Some friends might wonder what the "Red Label" and "Green Label" markings actually mean?

The so-called FrontStreet Coffee Red Label is the Esmeralda Special grade (including competition bids). The highest-grade Red Label is picked from high-altitude Geisha (1600-1800 meters) coffee fruits with cupping scores over 90 points, mainly from the Jaramillo and Cañas Verdes farms. Despite facing cultivation and harvesting challenges at high altitudes, the floral and fruit flavors of Geisha in the Boquete region are most prominent. Hacienda La Esmeralda holds independent bidding competitions. Red Label batches taken from designated plots for competition are called bids. Bid batches have a unique number, and each number corresponds to an entire batch from a specific plot. The one we most commonly hear about should be the Mario plot from Jaramillo farm. The Esmeralda Red Label Geisha coffee beans that FrontStreet Coffee obtained are from the Mario plot, using natural processing.

FrontStreet Coffee believes that brewing coffee beans is like cooking - the variety and growing environment create the exquisite flavor of the "ingredients" themselves, while the processing method used is a very critical step in preparing these "ingredients." Traditional natural processing allowed Geisha coffee to showcase rich and diverse fruit aroma flavors in the 2004 Best of Panama competition. Hacienda La Esmeralda has extremely high requirements for detail control in every aspect of green bean processing, which ensures the high quality of the Geisha coffee beans produced.

Hacienda La Esmeralda directly spreads the harvested ripe fruits on courtyards to dry, allowing coffee fruits to slowly dry with their pulp and skin, absorbing more fruit aromas. Natural processing determines drying days based on weather conditions and drying grounds. Generally, Hacienda La Esmeralda will sun-dry coffee cherries on concrete patios for 3-5 days, 8 hours daily, then place them in dryers to rotate for 72 hours to complete the drying process and prevent fermentation. After drying, hullers are used to remove the bean's outer shell and other parts. FrontStreet Coffee believes that specialty natural-processed Geisha has more fruit fermentation sweetness and acidity.

Another grade - Green Label, refers to Geisha batches named Private Collection. Green Label is selected from coffee planted at altitudes of 1600-1800 meters, all picked from the Jaramillo and Cañas Verdes plots, but Hacienda La Esmeralda does not specifically identify plot information, so they also do not participate in bidding. Although the grade is not as high as Red Label, it mainly embodies the signature classic flavors of high-altitude Geisha. The Green Label Geisha that FrontStreet Coffee obtained uses washed processing, with cupping performance showing fresher and more natural lemon, berry, grapefruit, and Tieguanyin tea flavors.

Washed processing involves first placing screened coffee cherries in a pulper to initially remove their skin and pulp; placing green coffee beans with residual pulp and mucilage in water to ferment for about 24 hours; after fermentation, placing green coffee beans with parchment in flowing water channels to wash away pulp and mucilage; after washing, drying coffee beans or using dryers to dry them until moisture content reaches about 12%; finally removing the parchment from green coffee beans. FrontStreet Coffee believes that as one of the most traditional green bean processing methods, washed processing not only makes coffee quality more stable but also gives Geisha higher cleanliness, with fresh and bright flavors, drinking like a cup of floral Tieguanyin tea.

FrontStreet Coffee's Barista's Pour-over Suggestions

Since FrontStreet Coffee considers that different Geisha batches have different growing environments, roasters will make corresponding adjustments based on the coffee beans' characteristics, but the main roasting direction is to highlight Geisha's floral aromas and fruit acidity, using medium-light roasting. Generally, when brewing high-altitude hard beans with flavors leaning toward prominent acidity, FrontStreet Coffee suggests using higher water temperatures of 92-93°C to stimulate more aromatic substances.

For brewing, FrontStreet Coffee uses segmented extraction. After grinding coffee, pour it into filter paper, start pouring 30g of water from the center for a 30-second bloom. Pay attention to using small water flow throughout, moving steadily from inside to outside in circles. Pour 95g of water in the second segment, and when the coffee liquid has almost finished flowing, start pouring the third segment of 100g, until all coffee has filtered through, then remove the filter cone. The time is approximately 2 minutes, with about 10 seconds margin.

FrontStreet Coffee compared the natural-processed Red Label Geisha batch with Green Label Geisha. The Red Label Geisha has an intense rose aroma immediately after grinding, with mango and tropical fruits in the mouth, and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel - completely unlike drinking a cup of coffee, more like a cup of floral and fruit tea. The Green Label Geisha's flavor performance is clearer, with jasmine flower aromas, berry and lemon sweet and sour taste, and a persistent green tea aftertaste.

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