We are now in our 6th year buying coffee from Nidia Enríquez. Her gesha offering is what we consider “classic gesha” in the best way possible… a super delicate and clean coffee with citrus notes, tons of a jasmine florals, and sweet stone fruit.

Notes from previous years:

We’re grateful to be able to offer a small amount of this beautiful coffee by Nidia Enriquez for a limited time. Ian first tasted this coffee in November 2021 at Azahar’s lab in Armenia, Colombia. It was fortuitous that this stunning gesha had been delivered the week before the scheduled cupping.

The lot was the first cup in the series of microlot tastings and as it was a blind cupping everyone’s feedback was what you’d expect from a magnificent gesha on the table… “this coffee tastes like peach, bergamot, stone fruit, citrus, flowers, jasmine, lemon”, etc… Ian took notes that the coffee tasted like a classic gesha profile. Alas, it was gesha.

However, the producer of the coffee was more mysterious than the variety: Nidia Enríquez. At the time, the team at Azahar didn’t have much information about Nidia or her farm. This is rare, given that the majority of the producers who work with Azahar have been doing so for many years and relationships are typically incredibly rich. But this coffee was Nidia’s first delivery to Azahar for purchase. Talk about an introduction!

Azahar has since connected with Nidia to learn about her farm and story. Coffee of this quality never happens by accident and we urgently wanted to learn more. And her story is fascinating. Azahar’s bio will be published below. We hope to purchase more of Nidia’s coffee from the upcoming harvest in Nariño. It is Ian’s hope to visit Nidia’s farm next month during the harvest.

More from Azahar:

In the department of Nariño, in the municipality of Chachagüí, located in the vereda El Convento, there are two lots planted in coffee. One is named La Pradera (The Meadow) and the other El Manantial (The Spring). Nidia Enríquez is the proud owner of them and alongside her daughter, Milena Salazar, they grow different varieties of coffee. Out of the two lots, El Manantial is the newer one, named as such because it has a fresh water spring and is where this Gesha lot was grown.

Nidia dedicates most of her time teaching philosophy and literature in the department’s capital, Pasto, leaving the coffee-growing tradition in her daughter’s hands. Milena Salazar is well versed in coffee knowledge as she has not only inherited generations worth of wisdom, but also educated herself outside of her family. Milena Salazar and Nidia Enríquez represent part of a new generation of coffee growers that are learning to work with the teachings of the past and their vision set on the future.

This widely sought-after Gesha coffee comes from mere 700 producing trees that sit at a height of 2,000 m.a.s.l. and is hand selected at its peak ripeness. The cherry is firstly bagged, weighted and left to rest for 2 to 3 days. The next step in Nidia Enríquez farm is to put the cherry in tanks with water to allow low density beans and debris to float and be removed. The clean and ripest batch is then de-pulped and placed in tanks to ferment for 24 hours. The cof- fee is then washed and placed in raised beds for a period of 8-10 days.