STORY

This is a traditional washed Gesha from Jalapa, Guatemala, produced by Inmer Abel Valladares Rodríguez on Finca Linda Vista, a sub-farm of El Pinal y Anexos. The flavor profile is gentle yet complex and evokes notes of pineapple, jasmine, apricot, and mandarin orange.

Inmer Abel Valladares Rodríguez was involved with coffee production as a consultant for 20 years prior to managing a farm himself, which he finally did in 1998. Since then his work has been extremely successful: in addition to gesha, El Pinal y Anexos produces pacamara, maracaturra, and pacas, and its coffee has scored over 88 points in recent Cup of Excellence competitions.

Tasting this coffee is an utter delight. The gesha cultivar itself may have a strong reputation and a consistent expression when grown in Panama or Colombia, but elsewhere in the Americas it often struggles to fulfill buyers’ expectations in florality, sweetness, or cup structure. Many people plant it, hype it, and many do receive great prices for the pedigree alone. We were extremely impressed by this specimen from Inmer’s farm, and felt it deserved a wide audience as a Guatemala gesha. It is beautiful, subtle, and brings a lot of the hallmark character we have learned to expect from the cultivar. We’re tasting honeycomb, jasmine, and lilac, and an open cup structure with lingering vanilla and citrus zest. It is unmistakably a gesha—a rare and successful expression coming from Guatemala, and moreover from a lesser-known department.