Over the past 15 years or so, many World Coffee Championships (WCC) competitors have used the highly-prized Gesha (or Geisha) variety in their routine.

When this exclusive coffee was rediscovered in 2004 at the Best of Panama (BoP) auction, it kickstarted a craze for the variety. It boasted complex floral notes and a tea-like body. In the years that followed, Gesha production proliferated in terms of both volume and geographical location, alongside soaring auction prices.

But is this “Gesha craze” coming to an end?

In the recent 2021 WCC, held at HostMilano, several winning or top-scoring competitors selected not a rare arabica variety, but instead another species altogether: C. eugenioides. In the months since, it has been tipped as another up-and-coming “darling” of specialty coffee.