Hacienda La Esmeralda introduced the Geisha/Gesha variety to the world in 2004 when the first entered this coffee to the Best of Panama cupping competition. This variety, from the Southwest of Ethiopia produces a distinctive cup unlike traditional varieties of the Americas and more like the best coffees of Ethiopia. A super star variety, some examples have sold for more than $4000/lb in online auctions. There are many other wild/semi-wild varieties from Ethiopia in research collections around the world. In 2007 Hacienda La Esmeralda began a project of planting 400 different Ethiopian Accessions from CATIE in Costa Rica on 6 acres (2.45 hectares) of land at their El Velo farm at 1700masl. Most of these were plants collected from Southwest Ethiopia by FAO in 1964, and a few are older collections such as Dilla & Alghe and Cioiccie. This year they harvested 4000lb (1800kg) of coffee from all of these varieties and blended them together. The varieties are harvested separately and washed processed. Cherries are pulped and then the fruit removed with a mechanical demucilager, after that the parchment is held in concrete tanks for 24 hours before being dried in small racks on top of a concrete patio for 8-10 days. After resting in parchment for 30 days the coffees are cupped multiple times and then the lots are blended together a milled and graded.