Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but a Panama Gesha just set a record price at auction. It was part of the 2025 Best of Panama online auction, bringing in a staggering $30,204 per kilogram, or $13,705 per pound.
As reported by UPI, the winning lot was a washed Gesha from the famed Hacienda La Esmeralda in Boquete, Chiriquí. The total 20kg lot was purchased by a single buyer, Julith Coffee in Dubai, for just under $605,000. Julith opened its Al Quoz cafe only last week, and their first post on Instagram was just eight weeks ago. One of the people behind Julith is Serkan Sağsöz, the brand’s head roaster and three-time Turkish Barista Champion as well as a Turkish Roaster Champion.
The auction took place August 6th and 7th, and the theme was the “Canvas of Terroir.”
A total of 549 bids were made for the washed Gesha that scored a staggering 98 points. But it was not the only coffee to reach the tens of thousands per pound mark. A natural processed Gesha, also from Hacienda La Esmeralda, that scored 97 points and netted $23,608 a kilogram for the 20kg lot. Despite selling for nearly $7,000 less per kilogram, the natural Gesha had nearly five times the number of bids that the winning washed Gesha did.
Of the 40 Gesha lots at the 2025 Panama Cup of Excellence, 28 reached a price above $1,000 per kilogram. 10 reached the $1,000 per pound mark. In total, the auction brought in $2.8 million, with an average price of $2,861 per kilogram.
Per UPI, Rachel Peterson of Hacienda La Esmeralda stated that the result was “a recognition of the effort of our entire team and the dedication Panama has put into cultivating excellence.” Meanwhile, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino offered congratulations to the producers, saying that the auction “puts Panama in a privileged position among the world’s most demanding consumers.”
(Just a quick reminder that there is no “i” in Gesha. The specious arguments for not using the correct spelling have to do with name recognition and association with the incorrect spelling. But at the point where a Panama Gesha annually breaks records, the argument degrades to pure obstinance. Anyway, it’s Gesha.)
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
