Our friends & partners at Verve Coffee Roasters are back again with a late 2014 stunner: this year’s release of Verve’s popular Panama Elida Estate Green-Tip Gesha is now available for sale in highly limited quantities via Verve’s web store, alongside a couple other limited supply gesha variety coffees from Panama and Costa Rica.
Panama Elida Estate Green-Tip Gesha isn’t cheap–Verve’s selling it for $65 per 8 ounces, in a decorative tin. But the coffee, from Panamanian family producers Wilford & Thatcher Lamastus, has been honored at the 2013 Good Food Awards, and is available in North America exclusively through Verve. Colby Barr of Verve calls out tasting notes of “pomelo and mandarin orange,” calling the coffee “a truly transcendent experience.”
For more on Green Tip, here’s some sourcing deets from Barr & Co. at Verve:
The Lamastus family has been producing exceptional coffees at their farm, Elida Estate, in Boquete for years. Through three generations, they’ve crafted a farm of astounding beauty, quality and sustainability. Elida Estate’s edges run into a protected rainforest with hundreds of species of rare birds, and the Lamastus family takes pride in their responsibility to care for the amazing ecology that surrounds their farm.
Years ago, Thatcher Lamastus planted Gesha seeds at the highest part of their farm. After four-and-a-half years of growth, the first Gesha plants began to produce. As they matured, Thatcher saw that his Gesha plants developed a distinguishing trait: the youngest leaves on the end of each branch featured either a bronze tip, or a green tip. Verve’s green buyer, Colby Barr, determined that the coffee from the green-tipped plants produced a far superior cup compared to those of the bronze-tipped plants. Subsequently Thatcher Lamastus separated these premium beans, and by doing so, the advent of an entirely new cultivar.
Now, after almost a century of travel and cultivation, this newest selection of Gesha has arrived at Verve Coffee Roasters. We are proud to be part of the history of this award-winning cultivar, and are even more honored that you would join us in its future.
The other gesha coffees in Verve’s collection are no slouch, including Jurutungo, a fascinating natural Panama gesha from noted producer Graciano Cruz; and a seriously limited remaining quantity of Los Girasoles gesha from Costa Rican producers the Family Calderon, owners of the Los Angeles micromill in Tarrazu. This Costa Rican gesha is only available in Verve’s Gesha Set, which includes all three coffees mentioned in this feature, plus another Costa Rica gesha that sold out like immediately.
Panama Elida Estate Green-Tip Gesha is due to be honored again at the next installment of the Good Food Awards, happening in January 2015 in San Francisco.
