El Encanto Geisha Anaerobic Natural

When Don Juventino Mirón first owned Finca El Encanto, he thought about cutting down the native trees that covered the land. Today, he tells his children stories about how he almost cut down the trees, never imagining the potential beauty of the farm as it looks today.

In addition to being breathtakingly beautiful, the forest provides ecosystem services, including habitat for local wildlife, filtering water sources, preventing erosion and more, for the surrounding region.

Today, three generations of the family live and work on Finca El Encanto. Don Juventino finds great pleasure in teaching coffee-growing techniques to the second and third generations of his family.

The Fraijanes region is rugged and mountainous and covered with old-growth forests. The region was hard hit by coffee leaf rust (CLR) and approximately 60% of cultivated land at Finca El Encanto was infected with CLR during the peak of the outbreak from 2014 to 2016. A nursery on the farm is currently cultivating 60,000 coffee seedlings - Catuai and other CLR-resistant varieties - to replace part of the land affected by CLR.

Coffee is selectively handpicked and processed on the farm. Cherry is fermented anaerobically in sealed containers for 24 to 42 hours. Following fermentation, cherry is placed on raised beds to dry. Cherry is raked frequently to ensure even drying. It takes approximately 30 days for cherry to dry.

Once dry, cherry is bagged and rested on the farm for 8 days before being transported to the cooperative’s warehouses to rest for an additional 90 days.

Geisha (also known as Gesha) is known for its exceptional cup quality, especially when grown at high altitudes. The variety comes from Ethiopian landrace coffees and was collected from Ethiopian coffee forests in the 1930s. The name supposedly derives from Ethiopia’s Gori Gesha forest.

There is some confusion with several genetically distinct varieties that have all been called Geisha, but the most famous variety is the Panama one. The variety was brought to Lyamungu research station in Tanzania and from there to Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE) in Central America in 1953. At CATIE, the variety was logged as T2722. CATIE distributed T2722 across Panama in the 1960s for its Coffee Leaf Rust (CLR) resistance, but its brittle branches meant it was not widely planted.

Panama Geisha reached its modern fame in 2005 when a Geisha lot won the “Best of Panama” competition and broke contemporary records at over $20/pound. DNA analysis has demonstrated that the Panama Geisha descended from T2722 is distinct and uniform. Today, Geisha is known for its delicate florals, jasmine and stone fruit.

Strictly Hard Bean (SHB) specifies the altitude at which the coffee was grown. A coffee must be grown at 1,200 meters above sea level or higher to be considered SHB. The higher altitude and lower temperatures mean that the coffee fruit matures more slowly, creating a denser bean.  

EP stands for European Preparation. EP beans are Screen 15+ with a low defect tolerance.