In the far west of Ethiopia, just kilometers from the border with South Sudan, lie the dense, wild-growing jungles of the Bench Maji Zone. It is a place of stunning natural beauty, where one can see the expanse of ancient, overgrown forest from above. This breathtaking landscape is home to the Gesha Village Coffee Estate, a 471-hectare coffee farm that has been built from scratch over the past six years. It is the work of two exceptional farmers who produce coffees as inspiring as their surroundings.
Rachel Samuel was born in Ethiopia and rediscovered the beauty of her homeland when she returned there in 2007 to film a documentary about the amazing Ethiopian coffee. During this process, her passion for her homeland and her compatriots awakened, and the coffee industry became her personal mission. The coffee path quickly led her to Willem Booth, a San Francisco Bay Area coffee educator known for his passion for the Geisha variety. He taught her the basics of growing and evaluating coffee with a focus on quality.
She soon returned with her husband Alan to Ethiopia to find suitable land to start their Geisha coffee growing enterprise. For months, they were searching for the perfect location – one with high altitude, sufficient rainfall, moderate climate and other important natural factors needed to produce excellent quality coffee. They found it at Bench Maji. The virgin landscape gave them the unique opportunity to build the coffee farm of their dreams from scratch and also something very special: proximity to the Gori Gesha Forest – the birthplace of the Geisha variety.
They quickly got to work collecting a selection of wild Geisha plant seeds from the Gori Gesha Forest. Once they had this valuable material, they spent month after month tirelessly turning the land into a working coffee farm capable of producing some of the best Geisha coffee in the world. In the past, Western Ethiopia was largely cut off from the global specialty coffee market, but now world-class Geisha coffee is available just a stone’s throw from where it originated.
Rachel Samuel, her husband Adam Overton and Willem Booth divided the land into eight sub-farms – blocks where they can track the production of their three varieties – Geisha 1931, Gori Geisha and Illubabor Forest – and experiment with different processing and fermentation approaches. The cherries picked from each block are marked to indicate their origin and, through a system they have developed, trace their entire journey from the mill to export. At Gesha Village Coffee Estate, several processing methods are used to bring out the optimal flavor of their cherries, namely natural (dry), wet and honey.
“The development of Gesha Village is a humble story of rebirth, community and innovation. However, we know this is really just the beginning, and we’re excited to continue sharing this journey with the specialty coffee community.” says Adam Overton
Knowing what priceless coffees with unique taste qualities are produced in Gesha Village, we could not miss the opportunity to enrich our selection with a very special coffee from this farm. That’s why Jordan Dabov, who visited the Gesha Village plantations back in February, returned with one of their unique coffees.
Here now, 6 months later, we have the opportunity to introduce you to the latest divine addition to our collection of the world’s best coffees: Ethiopia Geisha, produced in Gesha Village.
This perfect taste is hard to describe in words, you just have to try it and let your senses surrender to the amazing combination of notes of jasmine, cherry and peach.
Don’t miss the chance to enjoy it now because the quantity is limited.
And here you can also see footage from Jordan Dabov’s trip to Ethiopia at the beginning of the year: /ethiopia-2022-video-diary-of-the-coffee-hunter/
All pictures are property of and taken from Gesha Village’s wesbite.
