Peru - La Margarita Geisha Lot 003

The Solorzano family of La Margarita Coffee Reserve in Cusco gained renown through top-ranking Washed Geisha lots at the Peru Cup of Excellence in 2022.

Even before these accolades, their family and estate, under the pioneering leadership of founders Ivan and Neto, have been esteemed as exemplars of specialty coffee production in the country for stimulating the regeneration of the terroir's natural jungle environment and encouraging biodiversity to flourish, while driving the substantial and sustained productivity of their specialty coffee operations.

Focused on the deliberate cultivation of rare varieties like Geisha and Sidra that are processed post-harvest with intention, alongside their ongoing rehabilitation and renovation of the 50+ hectares of forested farms spanning the coffee reserve, they have contributed to the significant recognition of Cusco, Peru, as an origin of coffees that clearly express the exquisite and distinctive qualities of variety and terroir.

Majority of the Solorzano family’s La Margarita Coffee Reserve is planted with Geisha, alongside Typica and Sidra and amid , at altitudes ranging from 1,840 and 2,100 masl.

Amid a forested natural environment lush with native trees, such as Pacae and Pisunay, the coffee trees regularly receive an optimal five hours of exposure to sunlight, facilitating the desired slow maturation of their cherries. The presence of Pacae benefits the soil by capturing significant amounts of nitrogen, thereby enhancing the trees’ nutritional uptake.

La Margarita continuously and consciously works to evolve with every season to persist in advancing their family's vision of securing Cusco and Peru's stature as a prominent specialty coffee origin well into the future.

Geisha is an Ethiopian forest coffee variety with an extremely delicate root system requiring the perfect alignment of climatic, agronomic, and temporal factors in order to thrive and bear cherries with the potential for exceptional cup quality.

Cultivated with care and processed with intention, Geisha expresses the level of complexity and flavor clarity coffee champions and discerning specialty coffee connoisseurs appreciate best. As such, it is among the highest ranking varieties across the Americas’ prime awarding and auction platforms.

While its exceptional cup quality potential has pre-eminently been recognized in association with Panama since debuting in the global luxury coffee scene in 2004, by way of the Best of Panama Auction, Geisha has also successfully been acclimatized to suitable coffee-growing areas in Costa Rica and Guatemala, and triumphantly so in idyllic terrains by higher-end specialty coffee producers in South America’s Peru and Ecuador, in addition to the elite estates in Colombia.

For this lot, the Geisha cherries hand-harvested at a pre-determined ripeness level were pre-cleaned and sorted on the same day, and then entered an initial two-day anaerobic fermentation stage in cherry using 200 KG-capacity plastic containers (due to accessibility and practicality).

The cherries were then de-pulped, and then made to undergo an additional two-day anaerobic fermentation period. Both stages of fermentation transpired in the shade in the shade, with temperatures ranging from 22°C to 24°C.

Following fermentation, the cherries were washed and then slow dried, also under shade, between 18 to 24 days in La Margarita’s proprietary drying system, which includes the prudent use of fan dryers to manage moisture content along the desired parameters. The drying system is composed of small compartments, with individual trays that can hold 8 KG of coffee each, and the protocol involves consistently shifting the coffee to prevent detrimental microbial activity,

Throughout, care is taken to ensure the incremental dehydration of each coffee bean to protect the inherent properties that will make up the sensory attributes it will express in the cup.