Colombia La Esperanza Gesha

Vanesa Castro grows coffee on just two hectares of land in the remote municipality of Planadas in the south of the department of Tolima. Planadas is a small community located in the foothills of the Cordillera Central, the highest of the three branches of the Colombian Andes, and one of the most remote coffee-growing regions in Colombia.

Finca La Esperanza sits at 1546 metres above sea level just outside of the town and all Castro’s coffee is sustainably shade-grown. Gesha is one of the world’s most highly-prized coffee varieties, winning competitions and often setting record prices at auctions. Today geshas are renowned for their intensely floral and sweet tasting notes, and are more expensive than most coffees because of it, but the variety was originally prized for its robustness. It was mostly forgotten about until 2004 when the variety won the Best of Panama auction, and in the decades since gesha has grown in prestige to its current status at the pinnacle of the speciality coffee world.

This gesha from Finca La Esperanza is an anaerobic semi-washed coffee, which means the freshly-harvested cherries are partially depulped (some of the outer fruit of the cherry is removed by a mangle-like device) and then undergo a 96-hour oxygen-deprived fermentation process before being washed and mechanically dried.

Those complex floral and sugar-sweet notes are very apparent in this coffee—we also get some juicy stone fruit—and we’ve been enjoying it as both a pour-over and filter.

Colombia’s reputation as a specialty coffee-producing powerhouse is well known and well deserved. Overall the world’s third largest coffee exporting country, Colombia tops the charts when it comes to arabica, with over 11 million bags produced every year.

First cultivated in the country in the 18th century, coffee production began in earnest in 1808 and has played an important part in the country’s economy ever since. Most coffee in Colombia is grown by small farmers—60 percent of producers cultivate less than one hectare of coffee, while less than one percent have more than 20 hectares.

Colombia's mountainous terrain and diverse microclimates makes it an ideal place for coffee to thrive, and also allows for distinct variations in taste profile depending on the region, farm, and sometimes even plots of specific farms.

More than half a million families grow coffee in the country, most on farms of two hectares or less. The Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia (FNC), created in 1927, oversees the industry on a national level, with cooperatives and smaller farmer's unions operating regionally.

The FNC was created to defend the interests of its owners, the small-scale farmers who produce the bulk of the country's coffee, as well as to promote the production and exportation of Colombian coffee more generally.

Castillo, named for the researcher Jamie Castillo who helped develop the variety in 2005, is resistant to leaf rust and has quickly become the most planted coffee in Colombia. Coffee leaf rust (la roya in Spanish) has impacted coffee growing in Colombia, among many other countries, and remains a looming threat as the planet heats.

Did you know?

• The FNC is well known for its classic Juan Valdez marketing campaign, wherein an actor portraying a coffee farmer (alongside his mule, Conchita) extols the virtues of Colombian coffee. It has spawned many offshoots and parodies, as well as an international chain of cafes.
• The Coffee Triangle, comprising four departments including the northern part of Tolima, was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011.
• Parque del Café (Coffee Park) is a theme park devoted to coffee located in the department of Quindío. Owned by the FNC, it features a museum and exhibitions as well as an amusement park and animatronic show.

Our speciality coffees are 100% traceable and ethically sourced. We work direct with farmers, or through trusted partners, to bring you the best coffee from around the world.

Sourced in partnership with: The Green Collection
Producer relationship length: 1 year