013 - Demetrio Sanchez Pino
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This coffee will most likely be exclusive to 2025 season subscribers and will be roasted the week of May 5, 2025 as a dual release with AVIARY#014.
The fifth coffee of our 2025 season continues this year's exploration of non-Panamanian Geshas and comes to us from the Copa de Oro competition hosted by Osito Colombia. Demetrio Sanchez Pino's washed gesha scored second-place in the Western division but was consistently among the highest-scoring coffees each round of the competition.
From Christopher: "Though I was not able to attend this year's Copa de Oro competition, I asked the team at Osito if they'd be willing to share the cupping and offer sheet from the competition afterward so that I might have the opportunity to purchase any unsold lots.
"Following my analysis of last year's competition and my experience in Garzón, I knew the type of coffee I was hoping for: one that scored consistently high in each round of the competition and among the top 5 of each individual cupper. Cupping scores are impacted by table placement, but I was curious if this sort of comparative analysis from a large enough data set and based on my own experience could lead me to the coffee I was looking for—without ever dipping a spoon.
"The coffee I ended up selecting turned out to be in keeping with the theme I'd established for this season of Aviary—an exploration of geshas grown outside of Panama, where the prices paid, while still higher than traditional varieties, were a far-cry from the prices paid during the Best of Panama auctions.
"To be honest: I prefer Demetrio's to those record-setting coffees.
"As far as producing regions of Huila go, La Plata is the dark horse of the Copa de Oro competition—not as well known for its microclimates as San Agustín, or elevations and varieties as Palestina, or famous producers like Gigante and Cauca—but as Osito's purchasing manager Didier Pajoy has consistently shown me in our nearly decade of work together, its quality potential is staggering.
"Demetrio's 5 hectare farm is at soaring elevations in La Plata—2100 to 2200 masl—where he grows Gesha originally brought to Colombia by Banexport from the Esmeralda estate (the same program from which Lino Rodriguez / AVIARY#011 got his gesha) as well as Colombia, Caturra, Pink Bourbon and Arushi intercropped with corn, avocado, and arracacha.
"Aviary's first release of 2025 from Nancy Mendoza and fourth from Maria Nieves were Geshas from the CATIE collection in Costa Rica resulting from the FAO Mission to Ethiopia in 1964; the mythology of the gesha germplasm grown by Demetrio and Lino Rodiguez, sourced from Panama, is that it originated earlier, collected from Ethiopia in the 1930s and then sent to Tanzania and Kenya, from where it made its way to Panama and infamy.
"This coffee is juicy, vibrant and complex with notes of just-ripe mango and candy-like sweetness in a cup dominated by nectarine, jasmine, pineapple, and orange blossom."
This coffee is scheduled to be roasted the week of May 5, 2025.
TASTING NOTES: Nectarine, jasmine, pineapple, orange blossom, candy sweetness
ROAST: Light, to accentuate the structured acidity of this coffee and present its fruited character as ripe and juicy
ACIDITY: Structured, fruited, juicy and bright acidity
FUNK: This is a very clean, juicy coffee with no funk presenting during our evaluation
FOR FANS OF: Complex, high-grown washed Geshas; clean but fruity washed coffees; smallholders; contest winners; dark horses
FARMGATE PRICE: $6.76
FOB PRICE: $12.00 per lb
LANDED PRICE: $14.15 per lb
Demetrio's gesha was the second-highest score in the Western region of Osito's 2025 Copa de Oro competition, where over 200 smallholders submitted samples for participation. Based on the competition prize rules, Gildardo was paid a price of $6.5 million pesos per carga for this lot.
At the time of the competition in November, the exchange rate was roughly 0.000222308676 COP per USD. Assuming a milling performance (factor de rendimiento) of 90, this translates to roughly a farmgate price of $6.76 USD per lb of exportable green coffee.
While this is clearly a premium over typical export pricing (even for coffees of this quality), the noticeably high differential between fargmate and export price (FOB) is attributed to (1) the cost of financing expensive microlots, (2) the high cost of milling and sorting small lots, (3) the cost of hosting the competition which was designed to solicit smallholder participation and year-over-year purchasing commitment from roasters, and (4) subsidizing the premium payments offered as prizes to the winners of the competition.
Gesha coffee grown using biological methods at 2,100-2,200 masl in La Plata by Demetrio Sánchez Pino; selectively hand-picked at peak ripeness; sorted; floated; fermented in cherry for 12 hours in open tanks; pulped; fermented under water for 64 hours in open plastic barrels; drained; washed once; dried as a honey under shade in for 20-25 days; stabilized in Grainpro.
I recommend resting this coffee for 3-4 weeks from its roasted date filter brewing and 4-6 weeks for espresso-style preparation (though you may wish to try it earlier to enjoy how the coffee changes and opens over time).
As filter, I prefer a ratio of 1:17 using low-agitation methods of extraction resulting in 22-23% EY.