Colombia Geisha Coffee Wilton Benitez
$29.00 – $317.00
We taste champagne, jasmine tea, & peaches. Try it today!
This coffee is complex, versatile, and utterly memorable. This rare competition grade lot is our favorite this season for espresso and pour-over.
Colombia geisha coffee beans for sale. Wilton Benitez coffee. Gesha coffee bean. Unlike haymans coffee, this is fresh roasted.
Floral, Distinctive, and Delicious
This is a cup that is a showcase of all the hallmark flavors of Colombian Geisha coffee with the candy like sweetness and zippy wisps of champagne. We definitely recommend letting the light roast rest for at least a couple weeks if you can wait that long. 😋
The flavor is indulgent. Subtle as well as rambunctious florals collide. Lilac, hops, and honeysuckle. Mild spices like white pepper and savory herbs like marjoram alongside ripe, sweet citrus. A cotton candy and bubblegum sweetness becomes a top note after the coffee cools down. Effervescent hints of Veuve Clicquot champagne and Chimay Triple golden ale make up the bottom of the profile. We taste some fruit and sun tea right away.
Wilton Benitez produced this magical micro-lot on his infamous farm, Granja el Paraíso-92. We at Rigby Roastery are proud to present a series of their lots this year via direct trade. Wilton’s alchemy has us enchanted. It is a conversation invoking brew rich in nostalgic qualities. It is elegant.
We especially enjoyed it in a conical pour over. Bust out the V60 or the origami. We recommend you dial back the TDS (about 1.33) and lower the coffee to water ratio (1:16.5) to create more clarity and structure. This produces a complex cup that was also palatable for the average coffee drinker.
Notably, as the grind gets finer it gets a lot bolder and the savory notes become more concentrated. Furthermore, these brews also tend to get more spicy and rambunctious.
Gaudy, chuggable, mouthwatering. This Colombia Geisha coffee is lots of fun to experiment with. Classically rooted in the romance of its terroir and genetics. If a broad spectrum of memorable flavors is what you’re looking for, this bean has it!
There is plenty of floral compliments such as nasturtium and marigold to balance out the jasmine, honeysuckle, plumeria, and hops. Chamomile makes an appearance. Cold brews taste like peach sun tea but also pleasantly remind us of cava, cocoa nibs, honey, and butterfly pea flower tea. The caramel sweetness in the brew is undeniable but also a wisp of woody, dry white wine and cedar is a fantastic resolution to the cup.
This one sparkles as a crisp, clean espresso. It is full of surprises, and fascinates us with every new shot we pull. We recommend 18.5 grams in and 41 grams out at about 28-30 seconds for a tangy acidity and a creamy body.
About Geisha Coffee
Exploding in popularity in the first decade of the millennium, Colombia is considered one of the best terroirs for Geishas. Quality graders, exporters, and specialty customers searching for the finest coffee in the world agree.
Perhaps you first heard about it at a coffee shop or expo. Maybe someone brought up Panama. The Peterson family’s Hacienda La Esmeralda maybe. Inevitably whether these expensive specialty coffees did or did not live up to the high prices will come up. Coffee aficionados everywhere have plenty to say about it.
Any experienced coffee drinker or coffee lover will tell you that there is truth to the hype. They will also tell you that only well harvested, well roasted, and well brewed cups of coffee made with Geisha will be worth your time and money.
This arabica coffee species most likely originated near the border of Ethiopia and Sudan. The Gesha or Geisha varietal was collected in Ethiopia’s Gori Gesha forest in the 1930’s. The Geisha coffee bean is like no other. Expect flavors and aromas similar to the high end coffees of Ethiopia but also palates unique to the terroirs outside of Ethiopia where it is now commonly grown like Panama and Colombia.
One reason it is like no other is that for most of coffee’s history is was difficult to grow native varietals outside of Ethiopia. It has only happened very rarely up until the last century. However, after one of these rare happenings, Geisha arrived at the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica in the 1950s. Thereafter, it spread to other Central and South American countries.
In the 1960’s, government officials from Panama brought Geisha seeds from the CATIE to farmers in their country. Germplasm banks and coffee researchers utilized the first recorded translation of the varietal name as “Geisha” but this spelling is now used interchangeably with “Gesha”.
About Wilton Benitez Coffee
In agricultural endeavors, it helps to have vision, possess a persistent attitude, and ultimately understand how to invest your passion into your project in ways that yield significant results. In southern Colombia, Piendamo in the department of Cauca to be exact, you can find Granja el Paraiso-92, an innovative project operated by a farmer who embodies all of those traits, Wilton Benitez.
After Wilton Benitez coffee set a new record for the international auction price of Colombian coffee in 2019, his willingness to think outside the box and excitement for weaving together tradition with new innovations in agronomical science have only grown.
His journey into coffee cultivation and processing in his youth helps him to realize his affinity for coffee farming today. In the last decade, he’s become more focused on technological advances in cultivation and processing. The potential for modernizing coffee farming with advanced methods and new machines while perfecting the tried and true best-practices of his life’s work results in remarkable coffees. They demand the attention of the global community. We are thrilled to offer this rare competition coffee from a fan favorite.
We purchase these lots directly from Wilton’s family farm, Granja el Paraiso-92, in Colombia. They then ship them from Bogotá to our facility in the USA. The farm employs 92 families at peak harvest and directly employs 15 year round.
Everything about his operation is cutting-edge. There’s a microbiology laboratory on site alongside the quality laboratory and processing facilities. He grows more than 20 coffee varietals. Firstly, meticulous processes including rigorous selection, sterilization, sorting and characterization of cherries, and an initial controlled anaerobic fermentation are applied to each lot. Even further processing may be applied to the lot according to the most prolific potential profile.
Wilton’s project spans 100 hectares, 20% of which is designated as protected forests. It is made up of 3 farms, Granja el Paraíso-92, La Macarena, and Las Brisas. The 2 larger farms, La Macarena and Las Brisas, are co-owned by two other multi-generational farmers. This provides opportunities for learning and experimenting. They work diligently to better understand cultivars improve seeds, and gather data.
One of the reasons this is such a well-known farm is because Wilton has invented and advanced drying equipment alongside his team. This machine circulates air, and controls the temperature once humidity has been reduced. This machine reduces the risk of embryo damage and safeguards volatile compounds that are flavor and aroma precursors by providing for an expertly controlled dehydration. He can replicate and manipulate protocols based on each individual batch.
By circulating air and collecting moisture from the grains, Wilton’s unique equipment reduces energy consumption by 60% compared to Cisco machines, a popular brand of this type of equipment. These facilities prevent the risk of drastic changes in weather ruining an entire crop, and reduce the harsh effects possible when using traditional machines.
Agricultural endeavors are always an exercise in variability and the randomness of nature. It’s a delight to see the hard work and adaptability of a seasoned agronomist coming to life in a harvest like this one.
A recent interview with Wilton reveals some of the method behind his madness. He draws inspiration from wine making and the ways that fermentation can enhance the inherent flavors of the coffee. In the past, methods borrowed from the wine making world, such as carbonic maceration, have proven to enhance the presence of aromatic molecules in the beans.
About the Processing
- Firstly, they pick the Geisha cherries using a brix meter to selectively harvest only the most perfectly ripe fruit. They sort them to remove any defective cherries.
- Secondly, they perform a brief anaerobic fermentation similar to carbonic maceration.
- Thirdly, they pulp and wash the cherries.
- Finally, they move them to technologically advanced drying machines.
Wilton Benitez Coffee comes from Cauca
The Cauca region is the cradle of the Colombian massif, which is the source of most of Colombia’s major rivers such as the Cauca and Magdalena. Cauca is closer to the equator so it receives the most possible hours of sunshine throughout the year. It sports a stable climate throughout the year and the farms enjoy the protection of the high mountains from the winds and humidity that comes from the Pacific.
However, growing coffee in this region can be difficult due to the cooler night time temperatures that aren’t common in other areas of Colombia. This is a blessing and a curse though as it slows the ripening of cherries and can enhance acidity and sweet and fruity compounds in the cup.
The Puracé and Sotará volcanoes here enrich the soil with sulfur. Sulfur interacts with the sugars in the beans and creates a caramel, honey, and apple aroma and flavor in the coffee grown here.
Cauca is home to many micro-lots and nano-lots that are unique to the many cloud forests that exist there. The region is a heterogeneous, mountainous place and the smallholder farms here tend to produce one-of-a-kind coffees produced at different times of the year in different places.
Where else are they growing Colombia Geisha Coffee?
Colombia is known for growing beans that are rich in acidity. Certainly, cups of supremo are known for their hearty body and feel. Stone fruit and caramel are common parts of the cup profile. These Geisha coffee beans are all of those things, but with the added bonus of rare genetic cup qualities and immaculate processing.
Quindío makes up only 0.2% of the land mass of Colombia. It is the country’s second smallest department overall. It’s positioned centrally between Bogotá, Cali, and Medellín, the largest and most influential cities there. It is also perched upon the central cordillera of the massive Andes divide. The colorfully decorated towns, majestic tropical landscapes, and high elevation natural reserves draw lots of air traffic and tourism to the region. The lowest elevation points in Quindío are still well over 1000 MASL, and the almost entirely mountainous department is home to a multitude of coffee farms ranging from small family owned plots to large, ambitious projects.
Precious few coffees seem to make it out into the world from Quindío compared to other parts of Colombia. Huila, Columbia produces 200,000,000 kilos of beans annually. It is the top coffee producing department in Colombia with nearly 100,000 family farms covering over 350,000 acres of farmland. Since 2008, Huila has produced more coffee than traditional coffee growing regions Antioquia and the Central Valley. It is also one of the first regions to embrace the specialty market.
Pitalito in the south of Huila is the largest producer of coffee in Colombia. Accordingly, it is home to many Cup of Excellence winning farms. These farms are in a country that is the third largest producer of coffee in the world. It is the largest producer of washed and Arabica coffees. Comparatively, you probably won’t find any robusta in Colombia.
For more delicious beans check out our Ecuador Coffee Typica Mejorado.
Colombia geisha coffee beans for sale. Wilton Benitez coffee. Gesha coffee bean.