This natural Gesha from Wilder Lasso is one our most anticipated coffees of the year! Wilder Lasso’s coffees always get us very excited, as do Geshas, however this is also a n...
This natural Gesha from Wilder Lasso is one our most anticipated coffees of the year! Wilder Lasso’s coffees always get us very excited, as do Geshas, however this is also a new process to us too! Fermenting the Gesha cherries with pulp from his SL28 is an innovative idea and it clearly works. This coffee is an explosion of fruit and floral flavours, we are enjoying perfumy notes like jasmine, chamomile and hops along with refreshing, sweet fruitiness like white grape, melon, pear and papaya.
Although Wilder grew up on his mum and dads farm, El Diviso, he has only been working as a coffee producer since 2017, which is amazing considering the world class coffees that they are producing! Like many young people that grow up on coffee farms, Wilder left to get a degree and work in the city and up until recently he had a career as a vet and worked with some of the best horse breeding farms in Colombia! However, after visiting his family farm in 2017, he saw that they were struggling financially and decided to change career and take El Diviso in a new direction, with specialty coffee. With his training in genetics and love for learning, he set up a coffee variety program in the local town of Tocora and has been experimenting with fermentation and processing to elevate the cup quality and character. The family now have four small farms and produce a wide range of exotic varieties and experimental processes and their coffees have already featured multiple times in coffee competitions!
Wilder Lasso operates all four of the family farms utilising as many techniques as possible from Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). GAP is an international set of standards set out to ensure the safe and sustainable production of crops and livestock. These standards include practices such as intercropping to promote biodiversity, rejuvenating land that has degraded over time, use of organic fertilizers made from by-products, water management to reduce usage and treat wastewater and correct training of farm staff to ensure safety.
Wilder also has an out-growers program where they will process cherries from nearby farms, using their expertise, to help other farms get higher prices for their crops by boosting the quality.
Gesha (or Geisha) is a prized variety that often fetches high prices due to it’s unique and delicious flavour profile. The variety gets it’s name from the Gora Gesha village in Ethiopia where it originated from before it was taken to Costa Rica as part of a research program in the 1950’s. In Costa Rica it was found to have good resistance against Leaf Rust and so was taken over the boarder to Panama for cultivation there too. Initially Gesha was unsuccessful in Panama due to lack of altitude. However, fast forward to 2004 and after some experimenting, Gesha finally made a name for itself when it broke records by selling for a whopping $770 per kg!
Ever since that famous lot that was produced by Hacienda la Esmeralda in 2004, Gesha has been a desirable variety. While not all Geshas have the same quality and cup profile, good ones often exhibit high sweetness, very clean cup and floral notes like jasmine, coffee blossom and black tea.
When cherries arrive at the farm’s facilities, they are selected through flotation. The Cherries are then submerged inside plastic tanks with the mucilage of other Gesha and SL28 cherries. The coffee stays here for 7 days without allowing the pH to go below 5.
The cherries are then rinsed and laid on patios for a drying period of approx. 25 days.
After drying is finished, coffee is stored for stabilisation before threshing and exporting.