Ninety Plus Gesha Estates: Variety.
In the last post, I talked about what Joseph Brodsky and Ninety Plus have done for the land at Ninety Plus Gesha Estates. They apply the same amount of detail and care to their coffee trees. Joseph firmly believes that healthier trees make better coffee. To do this he has used lots of different shade trees throughout the farm, ensured that the soil is healthy, and even counted and catalogued every tree on the farm! In my opinion, this kind of attention to detail is at the core of what makes this farm so unique.
All coffee is originally from Africa, brought to the western hemisphere during colonial times. Only a few varieties were brought over at that time. This means that there are thousands of heirloom varieties still in Africa, each with their own unique flavour profiles, waiting to be discovered. Gesha is a coffee variety that arrived from Africa in the 20th century. It was not well known until Panamanian producers started planting it at higher elevations and then it transformed. Washed geshas are floral and exotic, with orange blossom, jasmine, tea, brown sugar, and elegant acidity. Since that discovery, farmers from around the world have planted gesha, however it does not guarantee quality. Only farms that grow gesha well and with good farm practices will reap the full benefits of this unique variety. Hopefully one day another variety with an equally exciting profile will emerge from Africa and we’ll get to taste yet another facet of coffee’s amazing flavour potential.
Ninety Plus Gesha Estates is planted exclusively with Gesha. Joseph chose to plant Gesha throughout the farm because he believes that it is one of the best representations of the diversity of the east African coffee flavour profile and it has the biggest range and diversity of potential flavours compared to other varieties. I experienced this while cupping on the farm. Even though all the coffees are one variety and from one farm, the flavours here are anything but monochromatic. I’ve had delicate floral coffees, super fruity and chocolaty coffees, and even some flavours that I have never experienced in a coffee before. Joseph and the team at Ninety Plus Gesha estates spend a lot of time learning how to use each processing method–washed, honeyed, and natural– to bring out different aspects of the variety.
In the coffee industry many people feel that the natural process removes or covers the original character of coffee and eclipses the factors that made it taste the way it does, e.g. variety, soil, region, country. Naturally processed coffee is very fruity and intense and it wins many people over to speciality (both Jeremy and myself fell in love with coffee through naturally processed African coffees), but people argue that it is not a true expression of terroir. Ninety Plus Gesha Estates spends a significant amount of work learning how each processing method affects gesha grown in Panama. They have learned how to produce washed, honeyed, and naturally processed coffees that all have clear gesha and Panamanian character, each one its own unique expression of the terrior of Ninety Plus Gesha Estates. In fact, some of the naturally processed coffees I have tasted while here express more terroir because in addition to clear variety and origin notes, there are also distinct fermentation notes that I have only tasted in these coffees.
I hear numerous customers and staff tell me that the coffee moment that made them rethink traditional coffee and start drinking specialty coffee was when they tasted a coffee that “didn’t taste like coffee”. The more that coffee can express terroir through variety, processing, and growing, the more those moments will happen because there will be more farms with unique and distinct flavors. Maybe one day no coffee will taste like “coffee”.