Takara, a Japanese word meaning ‘treasure’ and ‘jewel,’ is the name of a plot in Hacienda Copey cherished and so-named for its lush greenery comprised of uncommon vegetation, including ancient, precious ferns.
Geisha is a rare coffee variety with an extremely delicate root system that requires the perfect alignment of climatic, agronomic, and temporal factors in order to thrive and bear cherries with the level of complexity and flavor clarity coffee champions and discerning specialty coffee connoisseurs appreciate best. It found its way to Costa Rica through CATIE or the Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza. It is known for displaying complexity, distinct florality, and delicate citrus notes in the cup.
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 triumphantly been acclimatized to idyllic coffee-growing terrains of several countries the Central and South Americas.
At Hacienda Copey, Geisha trees thrive owing to conservation-oriented cultivation practices carried out by a dedicated maintenance team, whose critical tasks include manual weed control using machetes, shade adjustment, pruning, and soil condition checks, among others.
A commitment to ripeness underpins every harvest season at Hacienda Copey. It is fulfilled through a multi-prong approach involving farm managers’ hands-on supervision and guidance of the pickers, sorting and re-sorting by hand at different stages prior to the fermentation phase, and cherry ripeness-status classification, which allows for incentivizing pickers accordingly. As a further safeguard for quality, the cherries are additionally sorted by flotation, and also using a siphon machine.
The intention of post-harvest processing is to uncover and convey the flavor characteristics specific to the Geisha cherries in a certain plot, ensuring that the resultant coffee clearly reflects variety and terroir.
For instance, to direct the Takara Geisha’s character toward unforgettably floral, scintillating, and bright, candy-like intricacy, a Thermal Anaerobic process was implemented. It entailed a five-day anaerobic fermentation phase in Grainpro bags kept in the relatively warm environment of the green house, during which the cherries were stirred within the bags thrice daily.
The 12-day drying phase that followed was implemented in two stages. First was outdoors on raised beds, at the end of which visible traces of moisture were skimmed off the coffee. For the next and final stage to conclude drying, the whole cherries were moved into a green house, where they were spread out in thin layers on raised beds. In both stages of the drying phase, a dedicated team diligently monitored and regularly shifted the coffees until the desired parameters were met.
