Where the washed Geisha offers clarity, this natural-processed sister shows its most intoxicating, tropical face.
Two coffee farms in Volcán, Chiriquí, sit at the same altitude, grow the same Gesha variety, and employ equally skilled pickers. The difference between them is what happens after harvest. One washes their coffee, removing all fruit before drying. The other dries the whole cherry, fruit intact, in the Chiriquí sun for three to four weeks. The result from the second farm is our Panama Geisha Natural — and it is a completely different experience.
Natural processing on a Gesha varietal is an exercise in amplification. The genetic sweetness and florality of Gesha — already extraordinary — is pushed further by the extended contact with the cherry's sugars during drying. What was jasmine becomes tropical fruit explosion. What was peach becomes mango, strawberry, and passionfruit simultaneously. The elderflower finish intensifies. The cup that was already unlike any other becomes even more impossible to describe adequately.
Volcán Barú, the extinct volcano on whose slopes these farms sit, provides a perfect terroir for this kind of processing. The altitude ensures cool nights that slow the drying, preventing over-fermentation. The dry season in Chiriquí provides the low humidity needed for clean natural processing. Everything about this geography conspires to make exceptional natural-processed coffee.
This is the coffee we serve at the most important moments. Not every day — it would lose its power. But when someone is encountering specialty coffee for the first time, or when we want to show what this collection is truly capable of, we reach for this. It is our most provocative origin. The one that makes people put down their phones.
