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question: "Do you want me to make you an AeroPress Geisha?" And with that, "Going Geisha" had officially begun. The next morning, we flew from Panama City to David in the east and from there, drove our rental car up to the coffee farms in the foothills of the volcano. After spending a day with Ricardo Koyner tasting coffee, talking pro- cessing, cupping different Geisha cascara from different altitudes, and strolling in the fields of coffee until it was so dark we couldn't see where we were going, Oskar and I felt our heads were about to explode, they were so full of information. Ricardo had shown us different valleys and ridges that were just a few hundred meters from each other, but had totally different micro climates due to the winds altering from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He was full of ideas about how to work with the conditions, and already heavily involved in a bunch of exciting experiments, but the most awesome one for us was that he had built a greenhouse on part of a coffee field to compare how altitude and tempera- ture affect the Geisha. The greenhouse gave him a slightly higher temperature compared to the surroundings so he could really get the answer to what the resulting taste dif- ference would be. Crack. (That was the sound of my head exploding.) Over the next couple of days, we spent time with Plinio Ruiz at his family's amazing processing station and lab together with Graciano, who had just gotten in samples from his various projects in Peru, El Salvador, and of course, his family farm, Los Lajones, located just around Opposite page, at top: A er picking ripe cherry into his backpack for four hours on the slopes of Ninety Plus in Panama, 2013 Swedish Barista Champion Oskar pours his collection onto the drying beds back at the mill. Since returning home, Oskar has received daily humidity reports on this microlot and detailed information about the processing progression. Below: This is Graciano Cruz's award-winning Bambu Geisha, at 2,000 meters above sea level surrounded by flowering Geisha trees in the shadow of the Bambu Volcano. This page: José Raul of Finca Santa Teresa prepares the first cupping of the new harvest. design.tested 35 www.baristamagazine.com B o o k 1 - 5 4 . i n d d 3 5 Book 1-54.indd 35 3 / 2 4 / 1 4 7 : 1 1 A M 3/24/14 7:11 AM