Gesha Village Nestled deep in the remote western expanses of Ethiopia, the lush, untamed jungles of the West Omo zone are a treasure of breathtaking natural beauty. Secluded within this stunning landscape lies the Gesha Village Coffee Estate, a 471-hectare farm leveraging the harmonious primordial microclimate to produce some of the most incredible coffees in the world. Gesha Village was established in the early 2000’s by two partners who shared a fervent passion for Ethiopian coffee, its people, and its agricultural industry. After deliberate analysis, collaboration, and preparation, they embarked on a months-long expedition seeking the ideal location for their dream coffee farm – one with the perfect elevation, precipitation, and temperature conditions for growing exquisite coffee. They landed in West Omo; Ethiopian highlands only a stone’s throw from the ancient Gori Gesha forest, the heritage home of the famed Gesha variety and what is believed to be the birthplace of arabica coffee itself. For the last two decades, they have been nurturing and cultivating those exact ancestral seeds and reuniting them with the global coffee market. Today, Gesha Village spans over 1100 acres and supports over 700,000 coffee trees, represented by a combination of three meticulously selected varieties: Gesha 1931, Gori Gesha, and Illubabor Forest. The team at Gesha Village has leveraged the sprawling size of their land to establish highly progressive levels of traceability by subdividing the land into micro-farms, each bearing distinctive altitudes, soil compositions, and environmental influences composing a unique terroir that directly impacts the flavor profile of its fruits. Gesha 1931: Washed Surma & Natural Oma This box set features two unique lots of the Gesha 1931 variety which are grown and processed in two different ways. Monikered to reference the heirloom Ethiopian seeds that were collected for global redistribution in 1931, this substrain of the variety was subsequently lost for decades until it was re-discovered to be thriving in the volcanic jungles of Panama. Through genetic testing, plant morphology, and bean shape and size, these seeds have been identified as nearly identical to the ones that dominated the Best of Panama competition in the 90s and revolutionized our industry. The washed Gesha 1931 offering in this box set was cultivated on the Surma block of the farm, a nigh-46 hectare plot resting just beyond 1900 meters above sea level. The Surma block was named after the agro-pastoral ethnic group called the Surma, which have inhabited and nurtured the lands of southwestern Ethiopia for centuries. Gesha 1931 trees on the Surma block enjoy breathtaking views of the valley below, and produce staggeringly flavorful coffees laden with perfumed aromatics and bright flavor notes of red fruits. In processing, a mechanical demucilager is used to scrub away the mucilage from the coffee cherries. The coffee then undergoes full wet fermentation, where it’s soaked for 12 to 36 hours and then channel-washed. The coffee is then shade-dried for two to three days until it reaches 30 percent moisture content, then it is sun-dried on raised African beds to 11 percent moisture. The coffee undergoes 12 to 19 total drying days in this process.