Ethiopia, Coffee and Injera
Coffee was discovered in the East African country of Ethiopia by a man tending his goats (which become so energetic after eating beans from the plant that they did not sleep at night). Although coffee has certainly moved on from the highlands of Ethiopia and adjacent Eritrea coffee is still part of the culture. When guests arrive at a traditional home in Ethiopia or Eritrea it is common to sit around a low table, make and drink coffee and eat various meats, fruits and vegetable wrapped in Injera bread. CulinaryLore.com tells us about Injera.
Injera (or engera) is a large, flat crepe-like spongy bread that is a staple source of carbohydrates in Ethiopia and Eritrea. It is made from tef (or teff), a millet-like grain native to Ethiopia.
The large pieces of spongy bread serves as both the dish for meals, which is used for a variety of different stews or sauces, especially wat, Ethiopias spicy, and sometimes fiery, curry-like stew.
Injera is popular in Ethiopia and among Ethiopian and Eritrean expats across the world. In addition it is popular with individuals who cannot eat wheat products containing the protein gluten. The teff flour from which Injera is made is gluten free!
Meal with Injera Bread
Injera is a spongy kind of sourdough bread made from teff grass, the preferred grain of Northeast Africa. When eating at a traditional Ethiopian mean one tears off a section of Injera and uses it to pick up food from the platter, wrapping the food with the Injera like with a taco and then eating. Coffee in traditional Ethiopian setting is made at the table.
Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony
Making coffee in Ethiopia is referred to as the coffee ceremony according to epicurean.com.
In a world where time has long become a commodity, the Ethiopian coffee ceremony takes us back to a time when value was given to conversation and human relations. Perhaps an ancient proverb best describes the place of coffee in Ethiopian life, “Buna dabo naw”, which when translated means “Coffee is our bread!”
The roasting of the coffee beans is done in a flat pan over a tiny charcoal stove, the pungent smell mingling with the heady scent of incense that is always burned during the ceremony. The lady who is conducting the ceremony gently washes a handful of coffee beans on the heated pan, then stirs and shakes the husks away. When the coffee beans have turned black and shining and the aromatic oil is coaxed out of them, they are ground by a pestle and a long handled mortar. The ground coffee is slowly stirred into the black clay coffee pot locally known as ‘jebena’, which is round at the bottom with a straw lid. The lady finally serves the coffee in tiny china cups to her family, friends and neighbors who have waited and watched the procedure for the past half-hour.
Drinking coffee in Ethiopia is a social event along with eating Injera bread. Coffee is not only part of the eating culture in Ethiopia it is an integral part of the economy.
Ethiopian Coffee
The birthplace of coffee is still a producer of high quality Arabica coffee. Coffee in Ethiopia grows wild and can be harvested directly from forests. Alternatively farmers thin the forest canopy in order to increase production but still produce shade grown coffee. Like in Colombia coffee is grown everywhere including in the back yard where it is referred to as garden coffee. And there are coffee plantations where regular coffee is produced on an industrial scale. Ethiopian Specialty Coffee describes these levels of Ethiopian coffee production.
There are four types of production systems in Ethiopia: forest coffee, semi- forest coffee, garden coffee and plantation coffee. 95% of the coffee production from these systems can be considered as organic, although not yet officially certified.
Ethiopia is the number three producer of Arabica coffee behind Brazil and Colombia.
Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony
Colombian Economy and a Shortage of Coffee Pickers
When we think about the quality of regular or healthy organic coffee we usually think about sustainable agriculture, certification and coffee varieties. As a rule the state of the economy does not come to mind. Nevertheless, this article is about the Colombian economy and a shortage of coffee pickers. Bloomberg Business writes that coffee workers quit to build Colombian highways leaving coffee to rot during the harvest season.
Colombian coffee growers face soaring labor costs and harvesting delays as pickers leave for better-paid construction jobs.
Producers of the famed Arabica beans brewed by companies including Starbucks Corp. are paying workers twice what they received two years ago. Still, the labor shortages are leaving coffee beans on trees longer, allowing them to fall to the ground, where beetles can bore into the cherries.
“For every three workers we need, we have two,” said Juan David Rendon, head of the Andes Coffee Cooperative, whose members have about 35,000 hectares (86,000 acres). “Infrastructure in Colombia has been demanding a lot of manpower.”
The source of this dilemma lies in the world economy and especially the USA and China. The US has developed fracking technology to extract more and more oil and natural gas. And the Chinese economy has slowed significantly. The problem for Colombia is that it is an oil exporter and oil prices have fallen by half over the last year. According to Beta, Colombia uses hydroelectric power for its electricity and exports most of its oil.
In recent years, Colombia has increased its importance as an energy producer in the Western Hemisphere. Colombia is currently the third-largest oil producer in Latin America and is the seventh-largest crude exporter to the United States. Colombia is also the largest coal producer in South America.
The Colombian peso has fallen from 1,800 to the dollar to 3,000 to the dollar and jobs in the oil sector are getting hard to find. The Colombian government is doing what the USA, Europe, China and others are doing. They are creating jobs by improving infrastructure. In this case Colombia is building about 1,500 of roads through mountainous terrain. These jobs pay better than picking coffee and at least for the duration of these projects the jobs are year-round rather than season like in the coffee industry. This is relationship between the Colombian economy and shortage of coffee pickers.
Fewer Pickers and More Brocca
Brocca is an infestation of coffee beans by the coffee borer beetle. Not only are coffee beans not being harvested in time but when they fall to the ground the coffee borer beetles move in.
A major threat to coffee crops in various locations throughout the world is the coffee borer beetle. Hypothenemus hampei, its scientific name, is a small beetle native to Angola in Southern Africa. Over the 20th century is spread to the Americas and to Hawaii. The coffee borer beetle is threat to coffee crops wherever it is found. In the Latin American regions where the pest if found it goes by the names barrenador del café, gorgojo del café and broca del café. Infestation spread via the inadvertent transport of infected beans. The primary way to continue to produce healthy organic coffee when there is an infestation is to hand sort the bean and dry promptly after picking.
The problem, of course, is that if you do not have enough pickers because they are working on highway construction, you also do not have enough people to sort the beans and throw out the infected ones. Then when you store the beans prior to transport the infection spreads!
Coffee Varieties: Sarchimor
A coffee variety more resistant to coffee leaf rust than most is sarchimor. This is a hybrid between the Costa Rican Villa Sarchi coffee and a Timor variety. Timor coffee itself is a hybrid between Arabica and robusta which is what gives the coffee its leaf rust resistance. Besides being grown today in Costa Rica, the sarchimor variety is grown in India.
Coffee Leaf Rust Resistance
The leading quality of this coffee is its leaf rust resistance. Coffee leaf rust is a plant disease that not only kills coffee plants but wipes out coffee plantation.
A seemingly eternal threat to growing healthy organic coffee is a fungus that is native to the tropics where coffee is grown. Leaf rust attacks coffee crops and leaf rust kills organic coffee crops. If an organic grower is unable to treat the problem with non-chemical means he risks losing his crop and his livelihood. The fungus’ proper name is Hemileia vastatrix. When it is not controlled the disease kills coffee plants and reduces coffee growers to poverty. It starts as an orange to yellow somewhat powdery discoloration on the underside of the leave of the coffee plant. It begins as spots, less than a millimeter in diameter and grows to millimeters diameter with a pale yellow discoloration. It is known among Latin American coffee growers as “roya.” The issue for organic growers is that quarantine and destruction of individual plants is not always effective. Thus a grower who has put the time, effort, and money into getting organic coffee certification may lose everything unless he turns his back on organic practices and spays the heck out of his coffee plants. Then he can only sell his produce at regular coffee prices and not the higher prices that good quality organic coffee commands. If he loses his crop he needs to replant, probably after spraying the soil, and wait several years for new coffee plants to reach maturity.
The ideal approach to coffee leaf rust is to find a variety that has native resistance such as sarchimor or cross breed with Timor strains to produce leaf rust resistance strains such as the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation did in combating the disease.
The Colombian Approach
Colombia developed new varieties to combat leaf rust.
When coffee leaf rust swept into Latin America the Colombian coffee research organization, Cenicafé started work on producing a Colombian leaf rust resistant coffee. This was in the 1980s. Today Colombian leaf rust resistant coffee comes in two varieties, Colombian and Castillo. The first is a cross between an old Colombian variety, Caturra, and a rust-resistant strain from Southeast Asia, the Timor hybrid. Castillo is an offshoot of further cross breeding of the first Colombian leaf rust resistant coffee strain. Replanting with Colombian leaf rust resistant coffee in Colombia has reduced the incidence of leaf rust from 40% to 5% from 2011 to 2013.
Similar to sarchimor, the new Colombian varieties use traits of the Timor hybrid to combat this lethal plant disease. One can find healthy organic coffee in all of these varieties as any are amenable to the sustainable growing practices required for organic coffee certification.
Coffee Varieties: Blue Mountain
Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee is known throughout the world. As it turns out Blue Mountain is its own coffee variety although the same coffee is called PNG Gold in Papua New Guinea and Boyo in Cameroon. Aside from its lack of bitterness this coffee is derived from typica and has some natural resistance to coffee berry disease.
Tipica Coffees
Tipica originated in Yemen and is the forbearer of many sub varieties in use today.
Coffee varieties are the subspecies of coffee that occur by natural selection and by selective breeding. Disease resistance, yield and flavor vary from variety to variety. Variety or breed selection is critical to the planter as he or she must pick the optimal variety for altitude, sun or shade, soil conditions and climate. Regarding coffee varieties here are a couple of terms:
Variety: A variety is a smaller group than a subspecies and a larger group than a form. A variety has most of the characteristics of the species but differs in specific ways.
Cultivar: This is a cultivated variety and is developed using agricultural breeding techniques. The coffee in your cup is most likely a cultivar. Two common cultivars are Bourbon and Typica.
Typica
Typica is an old coffee variety and the father of numerous sub-varieties. Typica came from Yemen. Dutch traders carried it to Malabar, India and later on to Indonesia. Subsequently Typica arrived at the French colony of Martinique in the West Indies. Natural selection and breeding have produced the following new varieties:
Criollo (South America)
Arabigo (Americas)
Kona (Hawaii)
Pluma Hidalgo (Mexico)
Garundang (Sumatra)Blue Mountain (Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, Cameroon)
San Bernado & San Ramon (Brazil)
Kents & Chickumalgu (India)
The end result of years of development is the mild, flavorful and famous Blue Mountain coffee variety as well as Kona coffee from Hawaii.
Kona
Kona coffee is also a typica coffee and equally as famous as Blue Mountain.
Organic Kona coffee is grown on mountainous slopes on the Big Island of Hawaii. Kona coffee benefits from mild weather and moist growing conditions as well as the volcanic soil of the Hawaiian Islands. Because of its scarcity as well as its quality Kona coffee is one of the world’s most expensive coffees. Organic Kona coffee is therefore rarer and somewhat more expensive. Coffee was first grown in the Hawaiian Island in the early 19 th century from cuttings brought form Brazil. The Kona brand itself dates back to the 19 th century and an Englishman, Henry Nicholas Greenwell. Although Hawaiian coffee was first grown on large plantations a crash in the worldwide coffee market in 1899 led owners to lease or sell land to their workers. This started a tradition of family operated coffee farms of five to twelve acres. The fact that families continue to grow on the same land has led to the tradition of sustainable coffee growing that is the hallmark of growing healthy organic coffee.
Both Kona and Blue Mountain have their adherents and both are great coffees.
Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee
Blue Mountain coffee from Jamaica has become a sought after and expensive coffee. Eighty percent of this coffee is exported to Japan. In Jamaica, in order to be Blue Mountain coffee, it has to be grown between 3000 and 5000 feet. Anything above or below that altitude is not Blue Mountain coffee despite coming from the same coffee variety!
International Coffee Day
The first International Coffee Day was October 1, 2015. Sponsored by the International Coffee Association this day is meant to promote fair trade coffee and raise awareness of the plight of coffee growers. The promoters hope to make this a yearly event. Your favorite coffee shop may offer free cups of coffee but don’t expect to get your most fancy coffee house coffee for free! Since the focus of the day is fair trade coffee, just what is that?
Fair Trade Coffee
What is fair trade coffee? Years ago we wrote this:
Is fair trade coffee the same as healthy organic coffee? How does fair trade coffee differ from organic coffee and when are they the same thing? The original motive behind fair trade coffee was to develop coffee trade relationships based on respect, transparency, and dialogue between producers and sellers. The point is to guarantee fair prices to small coffee growers who would otherwise have no access to fair pricing. At its heart fair trade coffee is an idea for social betterment more so than a way to make better coffee. There is a “Fairtrade” coffee brand for which coffee packers pay a fee, a “Fairtrade” logo and brand name. Coffee carrying this name must come from an associated cooperative. In general cooperatives only sell part of their harvest as fair trade coffee because of lack of demand.
Demand, Certification and Cost
One of the premier coffee growers in Panama grows coffee that is organic in all respects except the name. The grower in question paid Bio Latina to certify his coffee on behalf of the USDA.
If your organic coffee originated in Latin America it is likely that it was subject to Bio Latina organic coffee certification. Bio Latina is located in Lima, Peru. The company certifies farms, ranches, and forests for sustainable practices on behalf of organizations throughout the world. Bio Latina certifies in Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Nicaragua and Venezuela as well as in Panamá, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador Ecuador and Mexico. The label on a bag of healthy organic coffee from Latin America may say that it is USDA certified. However, it may be Bio Latina organic coffee certification on behalf of the USDA that guarantees a pure cup of organic coffee.
And the grower in question paid the required fee for three years. And he never sold any more coffee and never was able to charge any more for his coffee. After three years this well-known Panama coffee grower continued to make the great Panama Mountain Grown Organic Coffee that he always did, but without the certification. Our point is that the same situation exists with fair trade coffee. The value of International Coffee Day is to increase awareness of the situation and encourage coffee drinkers to specify Fair Trade when they purchase at the coffee shop and look for fair trade when they visit the coffee roaster. Fair trade coffees are typically of very high quality and usually organic in practice even if they are not officially certified as such.
Coffee and Your Heart
There seems to be more good news every about coffee and your heart. Several months ago researchers reported that coffee drinkers have lower risk of having calcium deposits in their coronary arteries. Drinking three to four cups a day maximized the benefit of avoiding clogged coronary arteries as reported in Live Science. This means a lower risk of heart attacks.
The study of healthy young adults in Korea found that, compared with people who didn’t drink coffee, those who drank three to five cups of java per day had a lower risk of having calcium deposits in their coronary arteries, which is an indicator of heart disease. (The coronary arteries are the vessels that bring oxygenated blood to the heart muscle itself.)
The study participants who drank three to four cups had the lowest risk of developing clogged arteries seen in the study, said Dr. Eliseo Guallar, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, and co-author of the study published today (March 2) in the journal Heart.
It seems like the evidence for coffee as a health benefit just keeps coming.
Coffee Safe for Your Heart
Another issue with coffee and your heart was the concern that too much coffee would precipitate a condition called atrial fibrillation. Fox News reports that coffee is safe for your heart in this regard. (Republished from Live Science)
Researchers found that drinking coffee was not associated with an increased risk of a condition called atrial fibrillation, which is a type of irregular heartbeat, in either men or women.
“This is largest prospective study to date on the association between coffee consumption and risk of atrial fibrillation. We find no evidence that high consumption of coffee increases the risk of atrial fibrillation,” Susanna Larsson, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and lead author on the study, said in a statement.
It was a long term concern that since coffee is a stimulant that it would cause heart beat irregularities. But, that is not the case so drink up and enjoy. And there are more health benefits.
Benefits of Coffee
Read our article, Benefits of Drinking Coffee for more info about the benefits of coffee and especially organic coffee. Here is just the intro.
There are a lot of benefits of drinking coffee but there are especially benefits of organic coffee. Coffee drinkers are less likely to develop any of several types of cancer. Drink coffee regularly and you are less likely to get type II diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, or depression. There are, unfortunately a whole host of chemical impurities that may be found in a cup of regular coffee. The benefits or organic coffee over regular coffee hinge on the fact that healthy organic coffee is free of these substances.
A Hundred and Thirty Chemicals That You Can Do Without
Health authorities in Australia have found that more than 130 different impurities may be found in a cup of regular coffee. These contaminants include metals such as aluminum and zinc, pesticide residues, ochratoxin A, acrylamide, furan, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Some polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are found to cause cancer. Furans have been associated with skin disorders, liver problems, certain kinds of cancers, impairment to the reproductive, endocrine, and immune system, as well as effects on embryonic development.
Coffee and your heart appear to get along well. Drink up and enjoy.
Can Coffee Save Brazil’s Economy?
Brazil, the largest coffee producer in the world by far, is in dismal economic straits. The Great Recession followed by slowing of the Chinese economy has greatly reduced exports of raw materials. The Brazilian economy is in recession and the Brazilian currency, the real, has fallen sixty percent versus the US dollar in the last year. Nevertheless, Brazil is the world’s leading exporter of soy beans, sugar and beef as well as coffee. Because the dollar has risen versus the real there is more profit to be made (in reales) from exporting soybeans, sugar, beef and coffee. Nevertheless, according to Bloomberg Business Brazil should not count on coffee to save it from the recession.
The hope was that the real’s 31 percent drop against the dollar this year would make Brazilian companies more competitive and deter the consumption of imports. Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of commodities including soy, beef, sugar and coffee, and also manufactures airplanes and cars.
But exports’ share of the economy is little changed since 2011 and they account for just 11.5 percent of Brazil’s gross domestic product.
While coffee growers, processors and exporters do well (in reales) while the dollar is strong the Brazilian economy is very large and exports only count for eleven and half percent of the GDP.
Good for Brazilian Coffee Growers
Coffee is traded on the international market and the price is always quoted in dollars. According to a report by Research and Markets the coffee market in Brazil will increase slightly by volume and more by revenue over the next four years.
The analysts forecast the coffee market in Brazil to grow at a CAGR of 4.92% by revenue and 1.19% by volume during 2015-2019.
The volume increase has to do with the weather and the world market. The larger revenue increase has to do with the weak real and the strong dollar. Although coffee exports will not save Brazil’s economy they will be good for the local coffee industry.
Coffee in Brazil
Brazil produces a third of all the coffee grown in the world. As of 2011 its total production was 2.6 million tons. Exports in that year from Brazil were as follows:
Arabica Green Coffee 1.8 million tons
Robusta Green Coffee 160 thousand tons
Processed Coffee 200 thousand tons
Coffee accounted for 3.5% of total Brazilian exports in 2011.
If Brazil Recovers from Its Recession
If Brazil recovers from its recession, that will have little effect on coffee exports and the price of coffee. On the other hand a stronger real will mean lower profits for Brazilian coffee farmers. The one effect that currency has on coffee from Brazil is that coffee that has been stored can be kept in storage or sold. When the dollar is strong there is an incentive to sell stores of coffee and pocket the short term profit. This temporarily drives prices down as it floods the market with coffee. And by decreasing stores of coffee this sets the coffee market up for higher prices in the future.
Pour Over Coffee
If you are interested in a great cup of healthy organic coffee consider making pour over coffee. This is a traditional way to make small quantities of coffee and has now caught on with the likes of Starbucks. The short version is that all you need for pour over coffee is ground coffee, boiling hot water, a filter and a cup. And then there are the more complicated versions. Here are a couple of examples followed by our own “down home” method learned from the in-laws in the Eje Cafetero, Manizales, Colombia.
Still Active 15,000 Volcano, Nevada Ruiz
Manizales, Colombia
Simple Ways
Health presents the simplest way to make pour over coffee with a plug for a few products available on Amazon.com.
Grind the coffee
I use a hand-crank Burr grinder ($20, amazon.com) because I think the coffee comes out better, and there’s something satisfying about grinding it by hand. (Plus, I get a quick little arm and shoulder workout in, first thing-no joke.) But you can skip this step and use pre-ground or make it quicker by grinding yours in an electric grinder.
Transfer it to a filter
Because I use a porcelain Hario ceramic coffee dripper ($17, amazon.com), I use their paper filters ($7, amazon.com), too. You can buy other drippers, of course, but I prefer not to use plastic, and I think the coffee tastes cleaner with these filters than others I’ve used. Once the coffee is in the filter in the cone, give it a little shake to even out the grinds.
Heat up the water
Do this while grinding the beans. Here’s where I deviate from the die-hards. A true coffee expert would tell you to use a special kettle with a thin spout for precise pouring. I just use my regular kettle; the same one my husband uses for (gasp!) tea.
Pour over
Time to brew. Pour in just enough water to wet the grounds, then let it stand for 30 seconds to a minute. This allows the grounds to “bloom,” resulting in more even coffee extraction for the rest of the brew (you’ll see the grounds kind of puff up slightly). After the bloom, continue pouring, a bit at a time (just cover the grounds, don’t fill the filter all the way), until your cup is brewed.
This looks like a workable approach and there are more who want to have their say.
Must Have Gear
The Cheat Sheet offers lots of must have gear for making pour over coffee. These folks participate in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program so you can guess where to buy their suggested products.
You can make great-tasting coffee a number of ways, but one surefire method is to use a pour-over brewer. Unlike a traditional drip machine, pour-over brewers let you evenly infuse every granule of coffee with hot water. That way, the flavor is perfectly extracted from the beans, minimizing bitterness and ensuring a full-bodied cup of coffee. If that sounds appealing, then you’ll definitely want to give a pour-over brewer a shot.
Making great coffee with a pour-over brewer is surprisingly simple. Here are a few key pieces of gear to get you started.
These folks are promoting lots of products. The one I do like is the paperless coffee dripper because it reduces waste. Or you could go with what my in-laws use in the Eje Cafetero where they grow the good stuff.
Back to the Basics
In our article about coffee bloom we mentioned how pouring hot water over freshly ground coffee beans releases both carbon dioxide gas (the bloom) and healthy antioxidants as well.
Making Coffee the Pour Over Way
What is a coffee bloom and is it a good or bad thing? The coffee bloom is the release of carbon dioxide gas when hot water is poured over ground coffee beans. Carbon dioxide gas is trapped inside coffee beans when they are roasted. Darker roasts contain more carbon dioxide and lighter roasts contain less. Roasted whole beans retain the carbon dioxide longer than roasted and ground coffee and storing in a cool environment keeps the carbon dioxide longer. The antioxidant compounds that give coffee its health benefits and flavor are trapped in the carbon dioxide as well.
Coffee Bloom the Pour Over Way
At home I typically use the pour over coffee method to make coffee for three at breakfast and anywhere from three to six at lunch. We heat water in an old tea kettle. The filter is a white cloth bag that stains with use. It is rinsed after each use and washed once a week. The receiving coffee pot is older than the tea kettle and was purchased from a street vender on Avenida Santander in Manizales, Colombia. Our coffee is either from Panama or Colombia, preferably organic but any export quality coffee works for my family.
And Enjoy Your Pour Over Coffee
Coffee Varieties: Gesha
We have written quite a bit about Panama mountain grown organic coffee. This is the first time we have mentioned Gesha coffee, a gourmet variety grown in the highlands of Chiriquí Province in the west of the country. Panama is the last Central American country before you get to Colombia (South America). Once part of Gran Colombia, the Panama has a climate along its mountainous spine similar to the much larger Eje Cafetero in Colombia. It is in the coffee growing region of Panama near the town of Boquete that planters grew a left rust resistant Ethiopian coffee variety. Gesha gets its name from the Ethiopian village where it was first found. Planters tried Gesha in the 1950s but it was when the variety was resurrected in the early 2000s that its quality was first noted. Today Gesha coffee sells for as much as $35,000 for a 100 pound bag at auction! Considering that standard green coffee sells for a couple of dollars a pound, the Gesha coffee variety is in the stratosphere.
About the Gesha Coffee Variety
Gesha is an heirloom varietal. The seed stock is extremely pure. It has not been cross bred or altered. It is a faithful replica of the original seed stock from around Gesha, Ethiopia. The plant was tried in Central America in the 1950s because of its disease resistance. However, it only grows above 3,000 feet and is rather low yielding. It is said that because Gesha plant grows fewer berries it puts more flavor into each one. Many growers gave up on Gesha until companies like Starbucks raised public awareness of high quality coffees.
Where Can You Find the Gesha Coffee Variety?
Hacienda la Esmeralda is a coffee farm in Panama famous for its small plots of Gesha coffee. However, the Gesha coffee variety is also grown in selected locations in Honduras, Costa Rica and Colombia. An unique Gesha variety is called Santuario and sells typically for about $80 a pound.
What Does Gesha Taste Like?
Rather than the chocolate and mellow-but-crisp acidity that great coffees from Panama typically express, Gesha are more delicate and intensely floral showing their relationship to the heirloom Ethiopian variety from which it descended. Jasmine or orange blossom, sweet clover honey, lightly toasted green tea are typical tastes of a high end Gesha variety.
Organic or Not
Gesha is still disease resistant coffee variety that requires fewer chemicals to maintain its health. As such many Gesha coffees are as-good-as-organic without the organic coffee label.
$11 a Cup
The Coloradoan asks, what does an $11 cup of coffee taste like when reviewing the Gesha coffee variety.
It sells for $88 a pound to the retailers who can get their hands on it and $11 a cup to those of us curious enough to try it.
“God in a cup,” some have said of the roasted and brewed bean, worshiped for its soft taste and incredibly floral aroma.
And the taste is like tea – sweet jasmine, then crisp bergamot, also a hint of graham cracker.
And, connoisseurs will be livid if you add any cream, sugar or liqueur to this exotic albeit expensive coffee variety.