Tadeo Lopez Gesha Guatemala

Tadeo's farm is dense with everything: avocado, peach, and banana trees growing right alongside the coffee, shaded by grevillea and chalúm. Ground cover never really disappears, and the soil holds enough organic matter that Tadeo keeps fertilizer inputs light, splitting his approach between conventional fertilizer and a compost he makes himself from coffee pulp, chicken manure, and lime. The washed gesha we buy comes off a new fifteen-cuerda planting, which is still in its first year of production.

Tadeo and his son Benjamin run the farm together, which adds a flair of push and pull to the operation only family can provide. Benjamin wants to push things forward: new pruning to get more out of each plant, and pickers paid extra to select only ripe cherry, with a tighter, more controlled fermentation and drying on the back end. All of which elevates the cup quality. Selective picking costs more, and even with crews who return every season, Tadeo and Benjamin told us pickers still need retraining and close supervision. Benjamin has taken on more of that work himself, since supervising and retraining eats so much time, and he was candid about what the work actually asks of the pickers, many of whom are dealing with real financial pressure that makes slow, careful picking a big ask.

Tadeo's de-pulper sits on the farm instead of down at his house, so cherry gets de-pulped the same day it's picked. For the gesha, ripe cherry rests on the farm about twelve hours before de-pulping the next day, then drains briefly before moving to the family's wet mill, where it is fermented in a tank, about twenty-four hours total between cherry and tank. Tadeo washes it several times, floating off the lower density seeds, then leaves it submerged before a final wash the following day. It finishes drying under cover in the family's marquesinas.