Ethiopian Gesha sets price record for African Coffee

An Ethiopian coffee farm established in 2012 by Ethiopian-born Rachel Samuel and American Adam Overton, has set a new benchmark for African coffee with the sale of its Gesha at auction for a record US$85 per pound. The auction included 21 super specialty coffee lots produced by Gesha Village Coffee Estate in a remote region called Gesha, western Ethiopia. The farm was established in 2012 by Samuel and Overton, with the participation of award-winning coffee connoisseur, Willem Boot. More than 130 bidders, coffee buyers from Asia, Australia, Europe, Saudi Arabia and USA were bidding at the electronic auction. “We revived the Ethiopian strains of the super quality Gesha variety and we built a 400-plus hectare coffee farm that has been transforming the local economy of the Gesha area,” said Rachel Samuel. The top lot, a washed process Gesha 1931, was sold at $85.10 per pound to Pebble Coffee, a coffee merchant from Taiwan. In total, 5,423 pounds of unroasted coffee beans were sold at an average price of $40 per pound, 30 times higher than the average NY-C price for Arabica coffee.