Limited Release was conceived to help us showcase the abundance of delicious coffees our deep green buying programme helps us get our hands on – all smallholder coffees; all ecologically-produced or transitioning; all exclusive to Small Batch.
So far we have seen the release of two stunning coffees; James Karaoke’s “Fram Farm” in October, and last month saw us celebrating Yeferson Olaya and his stunning Geisha coffee. If you are interested in exploring Jame’s coffee further, it is now available in our store as both an Espresso and Filter release.
As we await more coffee from Yeferson, here is a little recap of his Geisha release that we are enjoying the last little bit of here at HQ.
Young (24), smallholder producer + organic + geisha. That should be enough to make you want this coffee, but there’s loads more to tell!
Yeferson and his family farm much more holistically and intentionally than most certified organic producers that we’ve seen. They make their own fertilisers, pest and disease controls. They have a huge worm farm, helping to produce fermentations that kick their organics along.
They are also a fantastic example of social and economic sustainability. Instead of employing pickers and workers, the 5 children and parents work the land, limiting the farm to a manageable size so that they can sustain it themselves. This geisha is picked at optimum ripeness (using a Brix meter we obtained for them), and the cherries are then left to ferment in skins for 12 hours, before they are de-pulped. The coffee is then left for 40 hours in a small plastic tank, before being fully washed and dried on raised African beds.
This first geisha harvest from Yeferson was just 17kg of parchment coffee (purchased by us and carried in suitcases back from the coop in Tolima via La Plata where it was milled) so this is your one and only chance to try it.
From a young, humble smallholder in Tolima, Colombia – not a wealthy estate owner in Panama – this coffee is crystal clear proof that extraordinary tasting coffee can have truly positive social and environmental impact. Support a real coffee producer, and buy yourself something that could well be a once in a lifetime coffee.
Keep your eyes peeled for our December release, and some other exciting things we have in the works!