Mattina Coffee x Hacienda La Esmeralda Coffee Tasting
The coffee events are at full swing and perhaps the most talked about is the Milan World Coffee Championships taking place in Italy. I wish I could attend it in-person but I was pretty excited ending last week with Mattina Coffee and Hacienda La Esmeralda Coffee Tasting Experience.
Daniel Peterson from Hacienda La Esmeralda and the President of the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama, was also at the The Barn Berlin x Comadante Brew Down a few days ago as a judge. I didn’t get a chance to speak to him then but I was happy to connect with him in this event.
Hacienda La Esmeralda are well known for their award-winning Giesha produced in Boquete, Republic of Panama. The coffee at the event was the Panama Noria San José Natural. It is part of the Esmeralda Special Auction Grand Reserve.
What all this means is a chance to experience one-in-a-lifetime 90+ scoring coffee. Some of you reading this might remark at the above statement and pass it off as exaggeration, but it’s not everyday you get to taste the best from Panama.
I am going to get right to it, the coffee was beautiful with juicy notes of plums and cherries, and intense aromatics of Jasmine while sipping the beverage. This might have been one of the best Geisha I have had in a long time.
Mattina Coffee is a roastery based in Dubai - UAE, sourcing specialty coffee from different origins, roasting and supplying to the local market. They also provide training and have a strong team of coffee professionals, Q Graders, roasters and cuppers certified by the SCA.
Danos and his team from Mattina Coffee welcomed the guests at the Paramount Hotel. They brewed their Tanzania and Ethiopia on V60 as appetizers to make way for the main course, Geisha, after a short presentation by Daniel Peterson.
The presentation was about the farm, the coffee and the processing. The farm was bought by Daniel’s grandfather in 1967. The family redeveloped much of the land for coffee farming in the ‘80s, and in the ‘90s, they expanded further and Geisha coffee was planted on the Jaramillo farm to develop higher scoring coffee. Read more here.
The planting of Geisha trees were the result of this farm being hit by coffee rust. Daniel noticed that the Geisha trees were unscathed and lead to the planting of this exotic coffee at an altitude of 1650 meter above sea level and higher.
Did Daniel take a chance or was it planned? Whatever it may be, the Geishas untapped potential became clear during the events of 2004 when the Jaramillo lot won the 2004 Best of Panama competition and set a record for the highest price paid for an auctioned coffee.
Picture credits: Mattina Coffee
The story of Geisha is interesting, which Daniel touched on it briefly. It was discovered by Captain Richard Whalley from the British Empire, under the order of the Director of Agriculture in Kenya, who was collecting coffee seeds from the Geisha Mountain in Ethiopia. Read more here.
In 2007, the family started research in coffee varieties, wherein 400 accessions from the Genetic Investigation Center in Costa Rica, have been planted on the El Velo farm, which is their newest farm. The aim is to discover other interesting varieties just like how the Geisha was discovered.
They have been cupping these varieties for many years and they are looking forward to planting on a larger scale. Hats off to the Peterson family, this is a slow process and can lead to the discovery of new varieties and a better coffee experience for us.
