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The champagne of coffees: Gesha's rise in India
Summary
With origins in Ethiopia, the ultra-smooth Gesha coffee makes its Indian debut
Among coffee connoisseurs, Gesha coffee has always been a revered coffee for more than a decade. Gesha, sometimes also written as Geisha, became popular in 2005 when it burst on the world coffee scene after Hacienda la Esmeralda, a Panama estate, won a national coffee competition and sold 1kg of its beans for a then-record price of $770 (around ₹65,000 now).
A varietal of Arabica coffee, Gesha was discovered in the Gori Gesha forests of Ethiopia in the 1930s. The coffee came into its own half a world away in Panama in the 1960s with the volcanic Boquete region boasting some of the best Gesha coffee plantations in the world. The coffee has bright acidity and lower bitterness compared to Arabica and Robusta, allowing for its floral and tea-like flavours to shine through in the cup. Produced in small batches and known for its labour-intensive cultivation and harvesting process, it has always commanded a high price.
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“There’s a reason why Gesha is called as the Champagne of coffees. It grows in limited places, production is limited to small quantities and the coffees consistently score in the 90s (out of 100). When you taste it, all the flavour notes come through," Ajit Joshi, co-founder of Delhi-based Caarabi Coffee Roasters says.
In 2019, Mumbai-based KC Roasters was among the first to bring Gesha coffee to the wider coffee community. Priced at ₹1,500 for 20g, the coffee caused awe and wonder in the home brewing community.
Shannon D’Souza, founder, KC Roasters, remembers getting 7kg of Gesha coffee from Hacienda la Esmeralda. “It was a lot of effort getting Gesha coffee to India and even with the prices, we made zero money off it (they sold it at cost as the price was unheard of at the time). Plus we had to tell the community how to brew it correctly because once the packet is brewed, you can’t make the coffee again."
Around the same time, Yercaud-based Riverdale Estate announced they had produced Gesha coffee in India for the first time and presold the batch to an Australian roaster. In July this year, Nagpur-based Corridor Seven Coffee Roasters announced the first Gesha drop (made by Riverdale Estate) and saw huge demand for the entire lot (around 24kg). Its founder Mithilesh Vazalwar says they are planning to release Riverdale Geisha at their cafés next month. “We are planning to introduce Riverdale Geisha, priced around ₹650 for a cup at our cafés by December. As a coffee varietal, Gesha ticks all the right boxes..." he adds.
In Bengaluru, 10-month-old coffee startup Insanely Good Coffee introduced Gesha coffee during one of their weekly meet-ups to an overwhelmingly positive response. The company roasts its coffee in Singapore and is focused on the Indian and Singapore markets. “Purchasing coffee in India is unstructured so we’re trying to build a relationship with customers through our weekly events to increase our reach. With Gesha, we saw that while people knew about it earlier, now they’re also aware of why it’s priced at a premium and become the talk of town," Aditya Kumar, founder of Insanely Good Coffee, says.
The company has collaborated with Bengaluru-based Sakura Matcha Bar to launch its coffees. “We roast only international coffees and this is the first D2C extension of our brand that we launched last month. We’re going to launch at more cafés soon, starting with Roastery Cultùr in Ahmedabad later this week," Nitin Shivnani, founding member of the brand, says.
In India, green beans are taxed at 110% for any international coffee, apart from duties and other taxes. This makes buying international Gesha coffee prohibitively expensive. For most coffee lovers, their best bet is to wait for other producers to follow Riverdale Estate’s lead and launch their own Gesha coffees.
Priyanko Sarkar is a Mumbai-based writer covering the F&B industry.
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