We're excited to announce the arrival of the award-winning Gesha Village 1931 coffee. We've been searching for away to bring this coffee to the United States for several years now, and our dreams have finally come true.
It's estimated that Ethiopia houses between 6,000 and 10,000 coffee varieties, implying that each village or town hosts its own unique variety. All of these unspecified varieties are marked as Mixed Heirloom Varietals, such as Dega, Kurume and Wholiso, which are examples of well-known ancient varieties that earned a name for themselves. So it's safe to say that most of the Ethiopian coffee that we drink is a blend. However, Gesha Village 1931 is one of the single varietals from Ethiopia.
Ethiopia’s coffee industry is dependant on numerous coffee smallholders, usually entire families that cultivate between 0.8 and 2 hectares. These smallholders deliver their ripened cherries directly to local washing, milling and drying stations – unlike other smallholders in the coffee industry that deliver in parchment.
Nowadays, Gesha Village is known for producing one of the best profiles in the world. In doing so, the Meanit people, local inhabitants and protectors of Gesha, thrive. After years of persistent exploration, Adam Overton and Rachel Samuel found their ideal patch of land in the Bench Maji zone, hosting the perfect conditions for the cultivation of Gesha. Their mission: bring Gesha coffee home. According to Adam Overton, "Today the Meanit are our partners. This is their coffee."
Gesha Village Coffee Estate cultivates its coffee lots, both natural and washed, from different farms, or as they like to call them, blocks. These are: Bangi, Narsha Gaylee, Dimma, Shaya, Oma, Surma and Shewa-Jibabu. There, varieties like Gesha Village 1931, Gori Gesha, Illubabor Forest, and other mixed varieties are harvested between November and February. Our lot is from the Oma block, specifically lot 99.
Tasting notes: pineapple, white grape, peach, jasmine
Varietal: Heirloom
Process: Natural
Harvest: November-February
