Uncovering Panama Rose Summer: The legendary story behind the world's most expensive coffee! What is the difference between Panama and Ethiopia's rose summer?

Many friends have discovered this phenomenon: Whenever everyone talks about rose summer coffee, although they don't mention the corresponding production area, the first thing that comes to mind is rose summer from Panama; Or when talking about Panamanian coffee, they will directly default to the rose summer variety; some people will even put a small bracket after the rose summer name to emphasize that it is Panama. It's like the rose summer variety is deeply bound to the Panama producing area.

But this is the case! This is not only because Panama is a production area that develops rose summer, but also has a certain relationship with the emergence of rose summer in Ethiopia! So today, Qianjie came to share why the rose summer variety always emphasizes Panama, and what kind of relationship this has with Panama and Ethiopia! So first of all, let's review how rose summer flourished in Panama!

Rose Summer and Panama Although Rose Summer was world-famous in 2004, it was actually discovered as early as 73 years ago in 1931. In 1931, in order to find disease-resistant coffee varieties for large-scale commercial cultivation, Colonel Richard Whalle and his party from the border garrison went deep into the Kafa Forest in southwestern Ethiopia to collect samples for research. Rose summer was one of the varieties they collected in a nearby forest, and was named after the erroneous translation of the local name "Gesha".

Later, Guixia went to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and other research institutes to cultivate and test planting, and in 1953 went to the Tropical Plant Research Center CATIE in Costa Rica. There, it was included as an antifungal variety and received the numbered name "T2722". Several local farms have relevant planting records. But unfortunately, Guixia's potential was not discovered at that time. It can be said that it was a bad luck. Although Guixia has strong disease resistance, its yield is not high, only one-half of that of conventional Arabica varieties. In that era when quantity won, the characteristic of low productivity was not favored by coffee farmers, so rose summer was not widely cultivated at that time.

It wasn't until the 1960s that CATIE gave Guixia to Panamanian farmers that Guixia officially entered the promised land. But just stepping into the promised land is not enough. It is said that there is a Bole in the world, and then there is a thousand-mile horse. The potential of Guixia also needs a Bole to be discovered. And this Bole was the one who made Rose Summer famous in the BOP event in 2004-Jade Manor!

It was not too late to plant rose summer at the Emerald Estate, but in the early days, rose summer was only mixed with other varieties in the estate. It was not until the 1990s that the arrival of leaf rust gave Guixia the opportunity to be noticed. Because most of the coffee in the manor was infected with leaf rust at that time, only Rose Summer was not affected too much. This drew Daniel Peterson's attention to this special breed and became interested in it. So he transplanted Rose Summer to more high-altitude areas and set up independent plots for planting.

The higher-quality planting environment allowed Rose Summer to exceed the limit. Then, in the 2003 Jade Estate Cup test, it surprised the Peterson family with its excellent flavor performance: rich white flower fragrance, clean green tea tail, with berries, citrus, and bergamot. This is the amazing flavor of Rose Summer. As a result, everyone who was amazed by Rose Summer immediately decided to send it to the BOP (Best of Panama) in 2004. What happened later was as everyone knows, Rose Summer shone brightly on the BOP, which not only made itself and Jade Manor famous, but also made the flavors of white flowers, citrus, honey and other flavors that dominated the BOP back then become the classic flavors of Rose Summer, namely "Rose Summer Flavor."

After 2004, Guixia won the BOP championship for three consecutive years and became the highest-priced variety in history. This made more and more people want to own Guixia. So some of them began a dream journey and went to the place where the British expedition discovered Rose Summer in an attempt to find the Rose Summer variety. Adam Overton, the owner of Grissia Village, can be said to be the first to achieve his vision. After going through hardships, he finally found two varieties,"Gori Grissia" and "Grissia 1931", in the surrounding forests. Two varieties that are relatively close to Grissia (T2722), were then specially cultivated and sold in the Grissia Village Estate founded by Maggie in the Essebanki region.

As the Guixia Village Manor is sold well, many people have spied on the business opportunities. As long as the varieties are named in the same way, basically all varieties produced in that forest can be named Rose Summer. After acquiring the name Rose Summer, its reputation and sales will increase exponentially. Then the ending is as we have seen, there are many kinds of rose summers on the market. They are not T2722, an anti-fungal variety that was "tamed" in Panama, and their flavors are quite different. However, the same naming method has earned them the title of rose summer, and their popularity and sales have increased steadily.

In order to distinguish the rose summer variety T2722, which was purified and shines in Panama, from them, people began to make notes on rose summer. For example, Qianjie often appeared on the same stage as Panama rose summer and Ethiopia rose summer. When, mark it after Panama rose summer (T2722). The World Coffee Research Organization also marked Panama after the rose summer of T2722 to indicate that it was a purified variety in Panama. So you can know that the reason why the rose summer variety emphasizes Panama is not to mean that the rose summer grown in Panama will taste better, but to mean that this rose summer is a variety purified in Panama.

In addition to the name suffix, we can also distinguish their origin by the two words of rose summer. The word for rose summer produced in Ethiopia is "Gesha", while the word for the T2722 variety is "Geisha". The difference between the two lies in the existence or absence of the word "i".

If you want to taste the legendary "rose summer flavor", the Front Street Association recommends giving priority to the rose summer in Panama. Because although rose summer is grown in other producing areas nowadays, we need to know that coffee is a crop, and its flavor is not only influenced by the genes of its own variety, but also influenced by the terroir of the planting. The flavor characteristics of different producing areas are completely different, and even the same variety will have different flavor performances due to different producing areas. Therefore, compared with the rose summer grown in other production areas, the Panama production area that made rose summer famous will allow you to experience the "legendary rose summer flavor." For example, Front Street Panamanian Poquet Guxia in Front Street Doudou List is a very good choice ~

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