I paid $52 for 100 grams of Esmeralda Buenos Aires 2NC, which will make around four cups of coffee. This is a naturally-processed Geisha. It’s no longer in stock, but the web page remains. I’m glad to see that Blendin Coffee Club no longer scrubs the web pages of the coffees they sell once they are out of stock.
The beans were SUPER hard to grind, which is often the case with Geishas. It’s like grinding up little stones. Strong berry aroma.
Here’s the 28 grams of grind in the sifter after using the Comandante C40 at 25 Clix. This will yield 20 grams of perfect grind after sifting.
No grounds smaller than 800 microns. This is all-important when making pour-over. When I see people dump coffee ground straight from the grinder into the filter, it makes me shudder. Do you even sift, bro?
Usual recipe: 15:1, 200-degree Fahrenheit water, three pours, 50 ml to 30 seconds, 150 ml to 90 seconds, 300 ml to 150-180 seconds. Hand-blown sha-may. When I see people make coffee in anything but a Chemex, it makes me shudder. Yes, again.
Lovely color.
This Geisha is much more coffee-forward than other Geishas I’ve tried. The really superb Geisha don’t taste of coffee at all on the tongue. It’s like a sneak attack. The coffee flavor hits and hits hard only after a minute. This Buenos Aires 2NC has coffee right up front, which makes me think it’s a lesser Geisha, but I could be wrong about that. It’s still good. Maybe my expectations were too high. Anything from Hacienda La Esmeralda commands a super premium price, even if it’s one of their lesser crops. That’s my opinion anyway.
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