LIMITED | PANAMA | Hacienda La Esmeralda | Nano Lot | Valle 2NC | Geisha | Natural

Origin

• 🇵🇦 Panama· Boquete

Tasting notes

Character

• Funky
  20

Rudolph Peterson purchased Hacienda La Esmeralda as a retirement venture in 1967, and his family has been tending to the land around the small town of Boquete ever since. In the early days, the land was primarily pasture for beef cattle, but over the years, the family transitioned to dairy cattle and coffee production. Now twenty years ago, in 2004, the Peterson family and Hacienda La Esmeralda, took the coffee world by storm. That year's Best of Panama competition saw GeishaGesha (Geisha)A rare, jasmine-and-bergamot scented variety originally from Ethiopia's Gesha forest, made famous by Panama's Hacienda La Esmeralda. Routinely the most expensive coffee at auction. reintroduced to the world – its bright and lively acidityAcidityThe bright, lively, fruit-like sensation in coffee — praise, not a flaw. Citric sparkle, malic apple-crispness, tartaric wine notes; light roasts preserve more of it., and prominent floral notes leapt off the cuppingCuppingThe standardized tasting ritual — coarse grounds steeped in hot water, crust broken, slurped from a spoon — used to score and compare coffees. table, and after the initial shock it secured the highest price ever paid for coffee at auction. The Petersons now grow Geisha in many sections of their estate. This very special lot is from the Valle plot of El Velo, the newest of Hacienda La Esmeralda’s farms – Valle is in the highest section of the farm, with altitude at or above 2,000 masl ., and this is the first-year coffees from Valle have been released to the world . During our purchasing trip to Panama earlier this year, we stumbled across this coffee on the cupping table, somewhat by accident. Alex (Rachel’s daughter) had slipped it onto the cupping table as a little treat – b eing such a small lot, the coffee wasn’t really for sale (while the Peterson’s decided the best avenue for it) , but Alex knew we’d get a kick out of seeing something so special . Well – it worked. Sc or ing an astonishing 95pts (out of 100) , it was our highest scoring coff ee of the entire purchasing trip. We had to have it. We’d do whatever it took. After some agonizing months (and many emails back-and-forth), the confirmation finally came – it was ours , and only few weeks later, on our second trip down to Panama – this time as members of the international jury for the Best of Panama competition – we collected the coffee from the team at Hacienda La Esmeralda and brought it back to the States – where it’s been happily sitting in our freezer, awaiti ng