Coffee is native to the southwestern highlands of Ethiopia, near the South Sudanese border. In the 1930s a seed collecting expedition was commissioned by the Kenyan Director of Agriculture. The wild coffee forests of Ethiopia, being the birthplace of Arabica coffee, are rich in genetic diversity. The purpose of the expedition was to find coffee accessions that were appropriate for cultivation throughout the British Colonies. As cup profile (i.e. flavor) was of little to no consideration at the time, productivity and resistance to disease were the primary considerations when searching for appropriate varieties. As an eventual result of this expedition, coffee from the Gesha region of southwest Ethiopia made its way to Costa Rica via Tanzania and eventually ended up on a farm that came to be owned by the Peterson family in Boquete, Panama: Hacienda La Esmeralda.
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Nearly 75 years after that seed collection expedition, the Gesha variety was famously brought into the spotlight during the 2004 Best of Panama competition, where a Gesha variety separation from Esmeralda bewitched the international panel of judges and shattered previous records for the highest price ever paid for coffee at auction. It has remained in said spotlight since, enjoying over 20 years as the world’s preeminent specialty coffee variety.
