Colombia Cesar Pedroza Geisha Double Fermented Washed

CESAR AUGUSTO PEDROZA
Cesar Augusto Pedroza is a coffee grower from the municipality of Garzón. He grows the Gesha variety at his one-hectare farm, La Camelia, which sits at 1,700 m.a.s.l. in the township (or vereda) of Las Mercedes. His 1,300 Gesha trees are four years old. The height of the harvest occurs during the months of May and June in this part of central Huila, and La Camelia traditionally experiences a fly crop in November and December, although this year the harvest has shifted, most likely due to climate change.


THE PROCESS
This washed lot was hand-selected at its peak moment of ripeness, after which the harvest was floated and dry-fermented with the cherries intact in plastic buckets for 20 hours. The cherries were then de-pulped and further fermented for an additional 20 hours, rinsed, and put out to dry on a marquesina (a parabolic greenhouse dryer with raised beds inside) for 20 to 25 days.


GEISHA/GESHA
The Geisha variety was originally collected from the coffee forests of Ethiopia in the 1930s. It was subsequently sent to the Lyamungo Research Station in Tanzania and later brought to the Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE) in Central America in 1953, where it was recorded as accession T2722. In the 1960s, Geisha was distributed throughout Panama via CATIE after its tolerance to coffee leaf rust was recognized. However, it was not widely cultivated initially due to its brittle branches, which were not favored by farmers.