'Upon grounding, you can sens the aroma of orang peel, black tea, peach and floral notes. At first sip, the dominant flavours are orange peel, white peach and honey, accompanied by the fragrance of orange blossom and bergamot. The taste is aromatic, sweet and clean."

The farm has gained a strong reputation for producing Geisha and other coffee varieties. Originally established by a Swedish individual named Hans Elliot, it is now owned by Rudolph Petersen, also from Sweden, who acquired it as a retirement project in the 1970s. At that time, the farm's primary income came from beef cattle sales, with coffee contributing minimally to its revenue. As the dairy cattle business expanded, Petersen decided to diversify and enhance coffee production, given the rich coffee-growing heritage of the Boquete region.

It was the high-altitude cultivation of Geisha coffee that initiated a series of events in 2004, when Geisha's remarkable aromas first became evident. This discovery preceded the Best of Panama competition, an annual coffee cupping event and auction that had been attracting significant interest among the next generation of coffee producers in Panama. For that year's competition, the Petersons did something unprecedented—they separated production from different areas of the farm into individual lots. One of these lots, from the high-altitude Jaramillo region, astonished everyone when it was evaluated.

Following the events of 2004 and Geisha's debut at the Best of Panama Auction, the Petersons focused on developing an infrastructure to support superior lot separation, meticulous processing, and a robust auction format. As auction prices increased, so did the demand for experiments like natural processing and greater specificity in lots.

This infrastructure development enabled Hacienda La Esmeralda to look to the future with confidence. In 2007, the Petersons embarked on a decade-long research project into coffee varieties, planting over 400 different accessions (sub-varieties) at the high altitudes of El Velo.

In 2007, Hacienda La Esmeralda began a project to plant 400 different Ethiopian accessions from CATIE in Costa Rica on 6 acres (2.45 hectares) of land at their El Velo farm, located at an altitude of 1,700 meters above sea level. Most of these plants were collected from Southwest Ethiopia by the FAO in 1964, with some older collections from areas like Dilla & Alghe and Cioiccie.

This year, they harvested 1500kg of coffee from all these varieties and blended them together. The varieties are harvested separately and processed using the washed method. The cherries are pulped, and the fruit is removed with a mechanical demucilager. The parchment is then held in concrete tanks for 24 hours before being dried on small racks atop a concrete patio for 8-10 days. After resting in parchment for 30 days, the coffees are cupped multiple times, and the lots are blended, milled, and graded.

Variety : Ethiopian Landrace
Altitude : 1800 masl
Processs : Washed
Origin : Boquete