Gesha – La Palma & El Tucan

Taste profile:
Intense flavours of mandarine, jasmine flowers and lemongrass. Great balance with lemon-like citric acidity, intense sweetness and a velvety body. Long-tasting grapefruit-peel aftertaste.

Variety: Gesha
Process: Lactic fermentation
Farm: La Palma & El Tucan
Place: Cundinamarca region, Colombia
Sourced by: Collaborative Coffee Source

The Langøra team travelled to Colombia in August 2015 where we visited the innovative farm and coffee producer La Palma & El Tucan. After cupping and tasting their freshly harvested coffees, we fell in love with this Gesha. As one of the first roasters in Europe to purchase this coffee, we have managed to get hold of 25 kilos of a total of 500 that is produced on the farm this season.

Gesha
The Gesha variety was first found in Ethiopia during the 1930s, in the forested mountains close to the town of Gesha. More than two decades after it was discovered, the plant left Africa and was taken to Central America, and eventually ended up in the mountains of Panama, where it became famous for its disctinctive cup profile.

The farm
La Palma & El Tucan is located in the Cundinamarca region of Colombia, an hour and a half from the capital Bogotá. Sitting on the eastern range of the Colombian Andes Mountains, it features unique micro-climates which provides ideal conditions for growing specialty coffee. This ‘nano-lot’ is part of their ‘Estates &Varietals’ project where a selection of exotic varietals are planted on their farm and processed using controlled fermentation techniques.

The process
The lactic acid fermentation process consists of an initial anaerobic phase in which the coffee cherries are left for a period of time inside a sealed tank from which oxygen is extracted. After the anaerobic phase, the coffee is thoroughly washed and slowly sun-dried for 15 days on raised beds. By controlling oxygen levels, temperature, pH levels and water concentrations, you get the right conditions for lactic acid bacteria to prosper. The results are a cup profile with an intense, very sweet flavour, with winey acidity and a velvety body that results from the higher lactic acid content.