Los Rodriguez - Gesha [25]

Producer: Rodriguez Family, La Alasitas farm

Region: Caranavi, Bolivia

Altitude: 1642 masl

Variety: Gesha

Process: Coco Natural

Roast Style: Light

Intended for: Filter

Cup Profile: Pomegranate, Floral, Winey

About the farm:

Pedro Rodriguez runs his farms with his daughter Daniela, and son Pablo under their company ‘Agricafe’. Their business is committed to preserving Bolivia’s coffee production, which had been in decline for the last couple of decades. Yields were falling due to outdated farming practices, lack of government support, as well as a wave of Coffee Leaf Rust disease in 2008 which devastated much of Latin America’s coffee farms. Many farmers opted stop growing coffee in favour of other crops. Concerned that Bolivian coffee production would cease altogether, Pedro started cultivating coffee on his own plantation in 2012. Later, the Rodriguez family created their ‘Sol de la Mañana’ programme, which helped other farms learn and adopt better farming techniques such as pruning, cherry picking and fertilizing. Their La Llama farm is their highest-altitude farm, and was named after a llama they encountered when they were looking around the farm as they were considering purchasing the land.

Coffee Varietal & Processing:

Gesha was discovered in the 1930s as a wild landrace in Ethiopia, however it didn’t receive it’s legendary status until 2004 when the Peterson family’s Hacienda la Esmeralda won the Best of Panama with their gesha. Today, gesha is widely regarded as the most prized varietal thanks to its tendency to give floral, complex cups; and is found all around the world on both competition stages and cafe menus.

‘Coco Natural’ is a special process developed by the Rodriguez family which allows them to deal with some of the challenges that come with producing natural processed coffee. Traditional natural process requires specific climate conditions, as the coffee is dried in the sun - typically on raised beds. For this coffee, cherries spend at least 48 hours on drying beds before being transferred to static dryers that were originally designed for cocoa. Warm air is blown up through the coffee over a period of 50 hour, with the cherries being stirred at regular intervals.

Brew Guide:

Best enjoyed as a filter. We would recommend using a cooler water than what you’d use for our washed coffees. We enjoy this coffee with Apax Lab JAMM and LYLAC, but don’t shy away from a bit of TONIK for the beautiful raspberry acidity.

Dose: 12g

Grind: Medium filter grind (25-27 comandante clicks)

Water: 200g. 90*. 40-80 ppm (Apax JAMM and LYLAC recommended)

Brewer: Orea 01, wave paper

00:00 Slowly pour 30 grams of water in a spiral, ensuring the whole bed is saturated. Avoid swirling or stirring at any point in the brew.

00:35 Another spiral pour to 110g. Use your kettle stream to ensure there’s no clumps of coffee or orange-brown foam floating on top

01:15 Centre-pour to 200g. You can use a faster flow-rate here.

Allow the bed to fully drain. Our total brew time is around 2:00.

Transparency:

Relationship: 1st Year

Quantity Purchased: 20 kg

Price Paid (£/kg): 51

Import Partner: DR Wakefield