Kenya Auction Lot #398 - Oakland Estate Gesha Paradise Roasters recently purchased 1 bag of this auction lot from the Oakland Estate at the highest price premium ever paid in the 50 year history of the Kenya auction system. What makes this coffee so unique to command such fierce bidding from buyers the world over? Varietal. Many years ago a wild forest varietal collected from Gesha Mountain in Ethiopia was planted at Oakland Estate. This year they decided to separate out the small planting of this varietal from their other coffee. They were able to produce a very small lot of around 600 lbs - Auction Lot #398.

What is so special about this varietal? To get an understanding we need to take a trip through history. In 2004 Hacienda Esmeralda won the Best of Panama coffee competition with a lot of coffee produced from a little known varietal called Gesha planted on the farm decades earlier and forgotten by most. This coffee tasted nothing like anything that had ever come out of Panama or anywhere in Central America before and had one of the highest scores awarded in any coffee cupping competition ever. This coffee went on to shatter coffee auction prices year after year and has dominated every tasting competition it has ever been entered into. The key to this coffee's unique quality was the mysterious varietal called Gesha.

The Gesha varietal planted at Hacienda Esmeralda had its origins in a remote region of southwest Ethiopia at a site called Gesha Mountain

Wild Forest varietal seeds were collected from this area in 1931. About a year later some of these seeds were planted in Kenya. There were several different Gesha varietals planted in Kenya. In 1936 two of these, VC 496 and VC 497, were sent to Lyamungu Station in Tanzania for use in Hybridization projects. In 1953 some seeds from the VC 496 Gesha varietal were sent to Costa Rica. Sometime later it found its way to Panama. It was largely forgotten in both countries because of its low yield. That is until Hacienda Esmeralda revived it in 2004.

This coffee from Oaklands Estate is not from the VC 496 varietal that made its way to Panama and made the name infamous. To understand its origins we need to fast forward another decade. In December of 1964 an Expedition by FAO was made to what was believed to be the site of the original 1931 collection site at Gesha Mountain. The Expedition never reached Gesha Mountain. But runners sent ahead of the expedition had collected seeds from the mountain and these were presented to the discouraged explorers. In 1972 seeds from the FAO expedition were planted at Oakland Estate.

Auction Lot #398 from Oakland Estate represents an extremely rare opportunity to taste a wild forest varietal grown outside its homeland and subjected to the terroir and sophistication of Kenyan coffee production. The result is somewhat as expected. There are many flavors in this coffee reminiscent of forest coffees from Ethiopia like the Tega Tulla we offered in 2006 - flowers, lime, bouillon, orange. But it also has the acidity and sweetness you would expect out of a great Kenya along with Kenya like flavors of tomato and molasses.

In late 2006 an expedition to Gesha Mountain was attempted by a group of coffee professionals. Like the FAO expedition before them they were unable to reach Gesha Mountain. Had they made it there would they have found the Oaklands estate Gesha varietal or the one that now calls Panama its home? Unfortunately it would be highly unlikely. Ethiopia is coffee's homeland and over the years thousands of varietals have been documented. And every year an unknown number of these disappear forever due to deforestation. There may be dozens if not hundreds of varietals that exist at the Gesha Mountain site and perhaps just as many that no longer exist there. So the Gesha of Panama may never be discovered in its homeland. But perhaps that's okay. There are other varietals from this area like this coffee from Oakland Estate that offer other unique possibilities as do the thousands of other varietals that have largely never even been explored and may offer flavors not experienced before.