MOONSTRUCK, Lérida Honey Gesha

After harvest, the highest quality cherries were selected using flotation. Next, a de-pulper was used to remove the skin while preserving the sticky fruit mucilage around the seeds. The coffee was then dried raised African beds on wheels, allowing workers to easily move them between sun and shade to ensure even drying. The entire drying stage took 23 days - an often overlooked process which is essential for quality and longevity.

The story of Lérida began in 1911 when Toleff Bache Mönniche, a Norwegian engineer and graduate of the Royal College of Dresden, traveled to the Highlands of Chiriquí. After sailing along the Pacific coast for seven days and riding uphill for hours, he discovered a place that remains unique in the world today: Lérida Coffee Farm—a magical space nestled between the immense slopes of Volcán Barú and the high ridges of the Central Mountain Range.

In 1924, after completing his work on the Panama Canal, Mönniche and his wife Julia moved to Lérida Coffee Farm. There, he built their house by hand in a traditional Norwegian rural style. This historic building, now known as The Casa Centenaria, stands as part of the Finca Lérida Boutique Hotel and welcomes guests to this day.

At Lérida, Mönniche designed and patented the "siphon"—a device still used worldwide and in the mill he built himself. Through these innovations, Finca Lérida became Panama's first specialty coffee plantation for export.

Gesha is a coffee variety originally collected from Ethiopian forests in the 1930s. It was sent to the Lyamungu research station in Tanzania, then brought to Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE) in Central America in 1953, where it was logged as accession T2722. Recognized for its tolerance to coffee leaf rust, CATIE distributed it widely throughout Panama in the 1960s. However, farmers didn't favor it due to its brittle branches and relatively low yield, so it wasn't widely planted.

There are actually multiple genetically distinct plant types referred to as Gesha, many sharing similar Ethiopian origins. World Coffee Research has confirmed that the Panamanian Gesha descendant of T2722 is a distinct and uniform variety. When managed well at high altitude, its cup profile can be phenomenal, known for delicate floral and peach aromas.

The lack of a standard translation from Ethiopian dialects to English has resulted in two interchangeably used spellings. The coffee was originally collected near a mountain commonly rendered in English as "Gesha." However, it was first recorded in germplasm records as "Geisha," a spelling mostly maintained by coffee researchers and germplasm banks for decades. The use of "Geisha" is problematic, though, as its non-coffee context carries specific connotations that many feel have been misappropriated for marketing value.

Gesha's global reputation was cemented by the Peterson family of Boquete. Their Hacienda Esmeralda won the Best of Panama competition in 2004 with this variety. The following year, their Gesha received exceptionally high marks and broke the then-record for green coffee auction prices, selling for over $20/pound.

The pulped natural or honey process falls between washed and natural methods in terms of fruit left on the seed during drying. After harvesting, the cherries are pulped to remove the skin, then dried with the sticky fruit mucilage remaining—hence the name "honey." The coffee is sometimes classified by the colour it turns during drying, which depends on how much fruit remains and how it's arranged and turned. Colours range from black honey (darkest) through red, yellow, and sometimes white. More fruit on the seed provides more fuel for fermentation, which can unpredictably affect the flavour profile. However, it usually yields more intense fruit flavours than washed coffee and higher perceived acidity than natural processing.