Brazil Luiz Paulo Gesha Fermented Natural - Filter Roast

COUNTRY - Brazil
REGION - Carmo de Minas
ALTITUDE - 1300 M.A.S.L
VARIETAL - Gesha
PROCESSING METHOD - Fermented Natural

Specialty coffee producer Luiz Paulo Dias Pereira Filho is the eldest of four brothers in his family, and, together with his cousins, are all fourth generation coffee `producers who are rooted deep in the local coffee culture history of the Carmo de Minas region.
Beyond the historical understanding, however, Luiz Paulo recognised his local coffee growing area had an incredibly unique identity, resulting in coffees with such distinct flavours that should be placed amongst the greatest world-wide, but there also seemed to be a lack of appreciation for this region in the buying market. This region that homed thousands of lives depending on the cash from cultivating coffee.
Recognising this disparity. Luiz Paulo with his cousin Jacques Pereira Carneiro began a pioneering project: the valorisation of special coffees of Carmo de Minas.
During this period, Luiz Paulo married his wife Mariana Poli, who supported Luiz Paulo through this endeavour. In 2007, Luiz Paulo and Jacques Pereira began CarmoCoffees, with the aim of exploring potential sustainability in coffee business.
This goal has been possible due to Luiz Paulo’s studies, having graduated in Business Administration in Sao Lourenco prior to his pioneering project. Not only does CarmoCoffees pay attention to sustainable coffee business practices, but they also boost research on coffee, and operate in a direct trade channel with
exporters. With a greater appreciation for coffee, many coffee growers and families in the area have been able to improve their lives through greater cultivation and processing understandings.
“My passion is the search for quality. It means being able to improve our coffees every year. I love being part of that process,” - Luiz Paulo

NATURAL PROCESS
The ripe coffee cherries are hand picked and allowed to dry completely around the seed before being husked or hulled off. While historically this hulling was done by hand with a kind of mortar-and-pestle setup, today it’s done by machinery that can be finely calibrated.
While the coffee is drying the sugars are continually fermenting inside the cherry while there is enough moisture to feed the microorganisms. This can take up to 30 days on average.
Due to the long fermentations, natural processed coffees often display fruity or “pulpy” flavours, often described as “boozy” or “winey”; can also have strong nutty and/or chocolate characteristics, and typically has a heavier or syrupy body

GESHA
Gesha (also spelled Geisha) is a once-rare variety that was ‘rediscovered’ in Panama in 2004, though it is increasingly becoming more common due to increased production in response to the high prices that the varietal fetches.

The variety originally hails from the birthplace of coffee, Ethiopia. The story goes that in 1931, the British Ambassador to Ethiopia selected a bunch of coffee cherries (most likely from different coffee trees) in the southwest part of Ethiopia, near a town called Geisha, to use them in his research. In 1932, the seeds were exported to Kenya’s Kitale centre under the name of Abyssinia or Geisha. In 1936, the sprouts from these seeds were sent to Kwanda station in Uganda and Lyamungu station in Tanzania for experimental lots. It wasn’t until the mid-1950s, however, that these ‘Geisha’ seeds made their way across the water from Tanzania to Costa Rica’s CATIE centre, where they were first planted in Central America.

Initial efforts to establish Geisha in Central America weren’t particularly successful, however. Although Don Pachi Serracin brought the first Geisha seeds from Costa Rica to Panama in 1963, by all accounts first attempts to cultivate the trees were disappointing due to the resulting ‘poor cup quality’. Later it became apparent that this was a result of planting the variety at low altitudes; nonetheless, the variety languished for decades, sometimes popping up here and there across Costa Rica and Panama, usually used in blends but never really taking off.

It wasn’t until 2004 that Geisha gained the recognition it deserved on the speciality coffee ‘scene’. In a gutsy move, one farm entered a sample of their Geisha in that year’s Taste of Panama competition. The lot created a sensation, not only winning the competition by a mile but earning staggering reviews by the judges.

Since this time, Geisha has come to be considered one of the most complex, intensely flavoured and desirable profiles of all the coffee varietals. Today it is grown widely in Panama and Costa Rica, though the plant is relatively demanding. Its unique profile is best brought out when grown above 1,500 metres, and trees require a great deal of stringent and very particular care and maintenance.

Although Geisha has relatively low productivity, it is somewhat resistant to coffee leaf rust and the fungus ‘Ojo de Gallo. These factors, combined with the high prices it commands at market, make it increasingly attractive to many farmers across Latin America.