Producer release - Ethiopia

Gesha Village Drop

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Producer

Gesha Village, founded by Adam Overton and Rachel Samuel

Region

West Omo, Southwestern Ethiopia

Altitude

1,909 to 2,063 MASL

Varieties

Gesha 1931 & Illubabor Forest

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The Producers

The people behind Gesha Village

Adam Overton and Rachel Samuel first came to Ethiopia in 2007 to make a documentary about its coffee. Rachel was born in Ethiopia, and the project drew them both further into the country, its people and its coffee. Coffee educator Willem Boot helped them learn how to grow and assess quality coffee.They settled on a site in West Omo, near the South Sudanese border and close to the Gori Gesha forest, where they collected seed from wild coffee trees. The estate they planted there now covers 471 hectares.

Gesha Village

Community

Schools and shared knowledge

A local high school opened in 2021. Since 2017 the estate's Gubalangi workshops have brought farmers together with local and visiting coffee specialists to swap what they know.

A lot of people handle a coffee before it reaches your grinder: the ones who grow it, pick it, sort it, process it and prepare it for export. We want their work to be part of the story we tell, alongside the flavour.

Varieties

Gesha Village is the producer's name. Not every coffee grown there is the Gesha variety, and this release has two.

Special Reserve

Variety: Gesha 1931

A selection from the wild Gori Gesha forest population, chosen because its plants, bean shape and cup resemble Panamanian Geisha. All four Special Reserve coffees are Gesha 1931.

Limited Release

Variety: Illubabor Forest

A disease-resistant selection linked to a 1974 expedition to the Illubabor forest. Both Gaylee coffees are Illubabor Forest.

The Farm

Coffee under native shade

Gesha Village grows its coffee alongside native shade trees, and an agroforestry specialist guides its reforestation work. At the mill, the estate reports recirculating water and treating the wastewater from washed coffees, composting cherry pulp, and using dried husks as mulch and fuel.

Gesha Village Drop FAQs

Gesha Village is a 471 hectare coffee estate in West Omo, southwestern Ethiopia, near the South Sudanese border and the Gori Gesha forest. Adam Overton and Rachel Samuel founded it, and it grows coffee in eight blocks under native shade trees.

No. Gesha Village is the estate's name. Our four Special Reserve coffees are Gesha 1931 and the two Gaylee Limited Releases are Illubabor Forest, a different variety.

A selection from the wild coffee population of the Gori Gesha forest, chosen by Gesha Village because its plants, bean shape and cup resemble Panamanian Geisha.

It's Gesha Village's own grade for its highest tier outside the auction lots, picked through repeated cupping at its Addis Ababa lab. Special Reserve is how we present those coffees at Blackboard Coffee Roasters.