Thanks to so many generous roasters, it has practically been raining Gesha/Geisha over the last couple months! This morning I have a new Gesha from the excellent folks at Airship Coffee in Arkansas to share with you, so let’s jump right in!
Purchase this coffee directly for $30/250g (about 8.8oz)
AIRSHIP COFFEE GUATEMALA MT. NUEVO GESHA
I got really spoiled around Christmas thanks to Gesha/Geisha (either spelling is acceptable, so I’ll stick with the one I like best from here on out!) hookups from my friends at Theodore’s Coffee Roasters and Monarch. Both coffees (particularly the Monarch version) were examples of the classic, big floral, unique flavors of one of the most expensive coffee varietals on the planet, Gesha, and they were from the Panamanian farm that made the varietal as famous as it is today. Gesha, however, grows lots of places, including its native Ethiopia, and this morning I’m having a taste of one from Guatemala via my friends at Airship Coffee in Bentonville, Arkansas.
I get a lot of coffee from Arkansas, which is a pretty happening state these days! The northwest corridor with Fayetteville, Bentonville and Rogers is really hopping, with places like Onyx and Airship leading the way in coffee. Airship Coffee is a roastery led by Mark Bray, who has been working on the agricultural side of coffee for a long time with boots on the ground with farmers all over Central America. Airship prides itself on working closely with farmers in all aspect of the growing and processing of coffee and I know from talking to people in the coffee biz here in KC that Mark’s name comes up often and always positively, so he’s the real deal! Airship has a cafe arm of the business, too, Mama Carmen’s, and their branded coffee (roasted and sourced by Airship, of course) is always awesome, too! So, next time you’re in NW Arkansas for mountain biking (I need to get there myself) and world class art appreciation (not kidding… it’s all that Wal-Mart money!), make sure you plan a coffee crawl, too.
This morning’s coffee comes from Finca Monte Nuevo in the Acatenango region of Guatemala. This is a Gesha variety grown around 1800masl and it’s a washed coffee with primary flavor notes of, “sweet lemon, bergamot, jasmine” according to Airship. As a side note, I always love how Airship places the fruits, teas, chocolates, etc that are predominant in their coffees in their photos on Instagram and on their website. That’s a cool little touch that adds a lot. What strikes most people about Gesha coffees on first introduction is the fact that they are expensive, with top Geshas from the Hacienda La Esmeralda in Panama fetching really high sums. $30 for almost 9 ounces (250g) of this one from Airship isn’t too bad of a price, especially for an occasional treat. If you’re a daily Gesha drinker, though, good for you and/or RIP bank account! LOL Gesha is a variety that is thought to have originated near the village of Gesha in Ethiopia. Ethiopian Geshas are pretty common and, apparently, nothing really out of the ordinary. My history may be a little fuzzy, but sometime in the 1940’s or 1950’s, I believe, Gesha was exported to Central America to test for its yield and leaf rust resistance and it was more or less forgotten about. In the early 2000’s, the Peterson family that ownes La Esmeralda started separating their Gesha yields from the rest of their coffee and won a big Cup of Excellence auction that fetched a lot of money, and that’s what started the Gesha craze.
I’m using my trusty 1:16 ratio of 28g of coffee to 450g of Third Wave Water in a notNeutral Gino dripper with Kalita filter and a Handground grinder set to 3 for my cups of this coffee. The aroma from the cup has some nice floral notes, true to the Gesha reputation, as well as hints of bergamot and, in the cooling cup, brown sugar and cocoa notes, too. Sipping this coffee, it has a medium to medium-heavy body with a really silky and smooth mouthfeel that’s punctuated by a dry finish into a long aftertaste. It’s hard to really put textures into words when it comes to liquids, but this has a really nice presence on my palate from beginning to end. On the front end of the sip I get a lot of lemon-lime acidity that reminds me quite of bit of the acidity in the Monarch Geisha, although that one was sweet lime and even lime Jell-O one from Airship definitely leans more toward lemon. That’s definitely the main note for me. In the mid and late half of the sip a lot of florals are apparent. I’m not great with flower flavors/aromas but there is definitely a reminder of jasmine tea in there for me, so jasmine it is! LOL But there is more than just a jasmine tea florality, too. The florals add a lot of complexity to this cup and there’s a lot to ruminate on as I taste this coffee. I just wish I knew my florals better! Bigger sips that I swallow faster yield even more floral notes and tone back the lemon-lime acidity a little, so this is a fun coffee to drink because I get different experiences with small sips, big sips, letting the coffee linger, swallowing faster or using my “restronasal” technique of agitating the coffee in my mouth and puffing breaths out of my nose to stir up a lot more flavor compounds (it’s sexy, you should see me do it. LOLOLOL)
At slightly warmer temperatures there is a lot of bergamot (this is an orangey, Earl Grey tea note… it’s bergamot that gives Earl Grey its characeteristic flavor) in this cup, but as it cools that mellows and really it’s all about the lemon-lime notes. This coffee has a lot going on in the high end with all those florals and bright acids, however there is a nice, sweet base to the cup, too, with a lightly sugary, syrupy vibe to it. The finish to this Gesha is pretty dry but not really as astringent or “puckering” as you may think. There’s a little bit of that, but really it finishes like a nice jasmine tea, and the tea-like finish is punctuated even more by the presence of the florals and hints of bergamot in the cup. The aftertaste lingers for a long time and I get a little cocoa in there, florals and a citrus residue that sits on my palate until the next sip.
This is a great coffee! It has a lot of the things that make Panamanian Geshas so sought after, but there’s more complexity to the cup, for me, than the Panamanian Geshas I got to drink recently. There’s a lot going on in this cup, and it’s all good and it all works really well together, for my palate. If I was tasting this coffee totally blinded I think I’d probably guess that it’s a robust washed Yirgacheffe because it has a lot of that same vibe, but it’s denser, heavier and is less tea-like than I would expect from a coffee from that origin. Very similar overall flavor profiles, though. In any case, this is a killer coffee! Of the three Geshas I’ve had recently, the Monarch one still gets my vote for the overall most “Gesha-ish experience” with it’s pure, shining lime acidity and crazy floral overtones, however in terms of pure drinkability, complexity and overall enjoyment, this Guatemalan example from Airship is the better coffee, overall. Yeah, $30 is a little steep for coffee in today’s market, but this is a fantastic drinker and you will not be disappointed in the least! Consider it a gift for your palate!