After the spectacular success of Esmeralda's Geisha; you can be sure that their forests were filled with sneaky people trying to get cherrries, cuttings, or whatever else would allow them to plant Geisha for themselves. Previous non-Esmeralda Geisha offerings, like Mama Cata's, came from other actual heirloom trees discovered in Panama; but now it seems, we are getting a new generation of post-Esmeralda Geisha coffees from ahem-heirloom-trees that have somehow popped up all over Central America.

... The same odd temporal distortion of supply and demand happened in London, where there are far more genuine 18th century pubs now than there were 20 years ago ...

But seriously, how are these new Geishas shaping up? Sweet Maria's is stocking a Geisha from Guatemala's Acetenango region, which I tried.

The taste is more Kenyan than Ethiopian, with powerful berry and citrus flavors and aromas, some cinnamon and brown sugar, and only slight hints of florals. Also Kenyan is the astringency which mars the cup when it is hot. When I cupped it blind with several other Kenyan and Ethiopian coffees, I misidentified it. This supports the alternative story of Geisha (related to me by Miguel Meza who went Geisha hunting across Eastern Africa): that it was developed at the Kenyan coffee research stations in the 1930s as an experimental hybrid of Ethiopian varietals. It failed in its initial tests there and in Central America; but apparently, the surviving trees have mutated or hybridized enough that the cup is now much better than in the 1930s.

For home roasters, this particular coffee is well worth ordering, I rated it a 92 but took off 2 points for the initial astringency.

I roasted mine to the lightest commercial roast, pulling it just as the flat side of the beans swelled, and the round side unwrinkled. I kept the MET below 250C, since I wasn't sure how tough the bean is, so the roast took 12 minutes rather than the 11 I would prefer.

The acridity was gone today, as was some of the power. The coffee was now slightly more floral, less berry/citrus. I dropped of the roast at a friend's today, so I'll need to do another to get more data.

I'm not sure how it works in this coffee; but in Ethiopian and Kenyan coffees I take acridity as a warning to keep the roasts as light as possible.

All in all, if this is a harbinger of Centrals to come as the more Geisha tress come into production, I am going to be a very happy camper

Miguel Meza's informative posts on the history of the Geisha Cultivar have been split off as an FAQ.

I never did get this bean to sing, and my initial score for it was too high, since I assumed the acridity was a roasting flaw and my fault. But all my faster roasts of it were acrid and all my slower roasts were dull. This is, I think, a fairly low grown bean, and it does not develop a full Geisha flavor.

You may do better than me.