Tonight (April 9, 2013), I had the chance to attend a very special coffee event. Leslie Wolford, a Starbucks coffee master at the Starbucks headquarters, lead the seminar for the new Panama Geisha Auromar Reserve coffee. The supplies of this coffee are so limited, it will be an online offering only. Here’s the link for it at StarbucksStore.com. As you may recall from the last time I wrote about a Geisha varietal coffee, the trees are low yielding, and many farms don’t grow Geisha trees, so Geisha varietal beans are in short supply.
This new coffee hass hints of orange and mango, and is described as having some spice (‘bergamot’) flavor too. One person at tonight’s event described the finish of the coffee as having a little bit of an “earl grey” finish. This new Geisha coffee strikes me as a little more complex, and robust than the last one, and less juicy. I got a lot of the orange notes (and some floral notes) from the aroma of the beans. I definitely was able to detect orange flavor notes in the coffee, though the person next to me thought it was more spicy! The roast profile for the beans is still a fairly delicate and nearly-blonde roast so that that you can enjoy all origin flavors, and almost no flavors of the roast. By the way, notice in the photos, these beans are fairly large coffee beans.
For this new Reserve, the Panama Geisha is being sold in numbered half-pound bags. There are only 790 bags of this coffee. It comes from just 17 hectares of land in Panama, at an elevation of 5,100 feet. Starbucks sourced so little of this coffee that they roasted it all on March 26, 2013, and it was roasted actually at the Starbucks headquarters, rather than one of the large roasting facilities like the Kent Roasting Plant.
Starbucks suggests savoring this coffee on its own, rather than trying it with food. We tried it both Clover-brewed, and made with a pour over, and I liked them both, though enjoyed the Clover-brewed a little more.
If you want to buy this coffee, you should do so right away. Since there are only 790 bags of it, I bet it will sell out in just one day. Each bag of coffee comes with a letter about the Panama Geisha Auromar, signed by Craig Russell, the Senior Vice President of Global Coffee Authority at Starbucks.
Thank you East Olive Way Starbucks for hosting this event. If it’s not obvious, I had a great time. I thoroughly enjoy coffee tastings, and it was terrific to catch up with many friendly faces also. And what a treat to be able to try such a rare and exotic coffee offering!
The East Olive Way Starbucks has regular coffee events every other Monday evening, at 6:00 p.m. I hope to see you at the next one! (Call ahead to confirm their coffee seminar schedule).
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Related article: Coffee event for the Geisha Finca Palmilera Starbucks Reserve coffee.
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i’m not sure if melody is referring to me or to the folks on her other side when talking about someone else thinking it was spicy.
i tend to taste things very differently from others,so here are my quick notes:
1. it smelled fairly earthy to me as a ground coffee.it was described as honey-washed, which is interesting wording,for sure.
2. as a clover-brew, i got a strong impression of burnt sugar/caramel, with a little tiny bit of fruitiness. i would not for the life of me have described it as citrus or mango, which is what it was described as by the speaker (whose name i have already forgotten,sorry!). if i rolled it around in my mouth, i got a little bit of maybe a berry note. most of the flavour stuck to the front half of my tongue.
3. as a pour over, it became a bit more fruity,but still not citrus. it got more intricate and intense as it cooled. again, most of the flavour was at the front of the tongue, for me.
i could totally see this as a stand alone coffee, and i am not a big stand alone coffee drinker. i like to add all the stuff. this one, though, i can definitely see being a no add-ins blend. they did say this one is on the lighter end of the roasting spectrum, which is probably why i like it so much. i can also see it as a good chilled summer coffee, but i don’t think it should be iced.
Just put my order in. I can’t wait to try it! I’m debating between doing a tasting right away or saving it for my Coffee Master certification tasting next month…
It just my opinion, but I dislike when Starbucks only sells certain coffee online. I understand the reason for limits on certain coffees they can sell, but it shuts other customers out. Why would a customer that has never tried the Panama Geisha buy it online before knowing if the would like it or not? I would love to try it myself. I know I don’t drink much coffee at home, but unless I was given an opportunity to sample it or try it at a local Clover / Reserve location, why would anybody buy this for home use without ever getting a chance to decide if they like it and it’s worth the money? The only people who would buy this are those lucky enough to have gotten an opportunity to have tried it in the past. Something most of us ever get the chance to do.
I’m not ranting, but I enjoy trying everything at least once. If I like it enough, then yes, I am willing to buy some for home use. To me, this is like buying a new car without ever driving it first. It’s hard to imagine how this would taste from just a review. I do appreciate the review Melody as always, but It’s another tease for some us. 😉
I think Geisha coffees are a bit of a hobby adventure rather than a drinking coffee, as good as they are. They are very expensive, usually starting at $40 a half-pound or so and going up. Roasters get them to show off and to share with people the adventure. You can find them from many other roasters when they are in season. I have tried them from Verve and Novo, and seen them carried by the likes of PT Coffee and Stumptown. A roaster might only roast one bag (30-130 lbs.) of it and sell out in a week. (The Starbucks page showed them getting it in in only five pound bags) If you live near a big store or roaster you can walk in and try them, if not you need to gather your hobby budget and take a flyer online.
You can invite a bunch of friends and try a coffee. Maybe even get them to share the expense. I took a flyer on a bag once and then shared it with partners in several stores. I now know I like it and am occasionally willing to splurge on another bag and try it again, but it is not a coffee I will even think of as an everyday coffee.
I think Starbucks is carefully stepping into the high end coffees. I would guess more than half their sales of geisha coffees are to partners who buy them to share with other partners or in their stores. I expect that over time it might be an annual event for coffee lovers (customers and partners) in a store to pool their resources and order a bag for the store. One bag produces 4 in-store French presses, so a store could hold 4 tastings with a bag.
Chgo I often wonder why SB cannot send these coffees to SB stores outside of Seattle for coffee tastings so those of us that want to try it can get a chance. I agree that it seems these coffee tastings are very limited and it is a shame. I totally understand the draw of Seattle but haven’t they realized by now that their customer base goes beyond Seattle!!! We have so few coffee tastings around here.
@Purple1 – At 790 bags of this coffee, they’re just not going to send it to stores easily. I can imagine, hypothetically, that Starbucks could or might send like a bag of it to a flagship location like Harvard Yard Starbucks or Streets of Woodfield Starbucks, and those stores might do coffee events like this. If Harvard Yard had done an event for this coffee, I can imagine that a lot of people would take the time out to see come to it! I can see Chgo going to Streets of Woodfield for a coffee event!
@Melody – Streets of Woodfield, being in Schaumburg Il., is probably the second worst place to be outside of downtown Chicago as far as traffic and congestion. I can’t see any coffee event going on that wouldn’t be a hassle to go to unless one lives in or near Schaumburg.There isn’t anything convenient about going to and from Schaumburg from the City. I could see Streets as a good choice, but not for me. Just my 2 cents worth.
I have LOVED going to STREETS for Clover coffees but I have to say, the last time I went there…being in the very nr vicinity….I could not find a place to park AT ALL (and I usually do not mind a walk…) but this day (a week day!) was so congested and busy, we had to leave and not stop. That was really disappointing. At this point, I’d rather be at the River Forest store…. at least it’s not generally sooo crazy busy. I think Streets has become a ‘tourist’ spot…deservedly so, but not so good for those of us ‘natives’. @Melody, when we went, it actually luckily happened to be that rainy/t-storm Sunday. I thought sure it would still be crazy busy that weekend but the t-storms helped us out I guess.
I do wish RESERVE coffees were at least back in the few stores they were in that didn’t have a Clover. That was helpful.
Melody I do understand the issue of limited supply and where to send it, but that being said I do think that corporate in general does not provide enough options for customers to taste new coffees beyond the Seattle market. But, I guess this has been an ongoing issue with coffee tastings.
@disqus_TdwdmbeFhB:disqus – I can appreciate what you’re saying. There’s no doubt, because I am right here in Seattle, I have a number of opportunities that many Starbucks customers (and even to some degree partners?) do not have. And I can completely agree that there should be tasting opportunities all over. And, well, there is an issue of access – You’re most likely going to find tasting opportunities in larger, flagship Clover Starbucks. Totally agree that it makes tastings generally more difficult (and this situation as an online only is a rare bird). If I were, hypothetically, wanting to try Sun Dried Sidamo, and I lived in Chicago, I’d pretty much have to go to a Clover store and ask if they’ll sample it for me. And if you’re in Arizona, Hawaii, New Mexico – places with no (or a tiny number) of Clover stores, I can appreciate that this is tough. I am sorry! It is a pain. It’s just that with supply and demand of a scarce coffee bean (and I’m not just referring to this Geisha, rather the Reserves more generally) that is how it is. 🙁 I am sorry. I know there are Clover stores in the state that you’re in – I hope some day you get to have the experience of sampling/tasting coffee there. I know you’re more of a tea drinker though. I realize this isn’t a great reply, but I just wanted to say that I understand that the experiences in Seattle are not universal. But the opportunities to try Reserve coffees are there – just maybe a little tougher to get to.
Melody,
It sounds like an amazing event. So happy for you that you got to participate. I saw in one of the photos that Major Cohen was a part of it. That must have been great. That guy will forget more about coffee than most of us will ever learn.
My little cafe store is not a Clover store. In fact, the nearest Clover store for me is no less than a 45-minute drive and I live in Southern California. (In fairness, everything in Southern California is no less than a 30-minute drive to begin with so take it with a grain of salt.) I had to order my Geisha coffee online like everyone else. I am only speaking for myself here when I say that ordering Reserve coffees without ever having tried them is a leap of faith I am willing to take with Starbucks. Sure, my partner discount eases the pain a bit, but the reservoir of trust Starbucks has built with me makes me comfortable ordering a product I have never tried.
I am definitely excited to receive my coffee. It shipped today so I just have to wait a couple more days. I will take it to my store and do a tasting with my partners and customers. I have done this before at my store with Reserve coffees and one of my customers asked why I was “sampling” a coffee that we don’t sell in the store. The simple answer was that without such a tasting my customers would never get to experience this coffee in our store and if nothing else, since the Reserve coffees are limited editions, by identifying the characteristics one likes or dislikes about a coffee it can lead us to find a core coffee that suits their tastes. With that, she tried the coffee with an open mind and together we discovered that she likes Kenya a lot more than the Italian Roast she had been buying.
So, I hope that everyone who is fortunate enough to try this coffee walks away with more than just the memory of this coffee. This is why I appreciate your coffee reviews. You never fail to touch on processing method, roast profile and brew method. These are all things that have a big impact on the final cup of coffee and being able to identify differences in the cup based on these variables can lead one to find a wold of coffees they may never have known existed.
Thanks for the review, Melody! I ordered this right away! I can’t believe how rare it is! It sounds like it’s going to be amazing!
Sounds like they have great seminars at olive way and a lot of customer interest, something that is significantly lacking here. As for online only coffees, I’m not sure that with only 790 bags of it that there’s much choice. And because its a limited time rare reserve coffee, it will easily sell out even if no one has tried it.
Looks like it is now sold out. Seems like that took just a little over 24 hours.
There are a few bags still at Olive Way for sale. Ask a barista!