Elida Estate broke all the possible barriers in 2018, highest price paid in a coffee auction at $803 and $661 per pound of Elida Geisha Natural and Elida Geisha Washed respectively. After winning BOTH 1st places in Geisha Washed and Geisha Natural category with a record in points with a score of 94.66 in Elida Geisha Washed, the expectations for the Best of Panama Auction were high.
But how high? lets remember 2017 when Hacienda La Esmeralda broke an unimaginable record with the Geisha Natural from Cañas Verdes and the bid was won by Kew Specialty. The 601 made news all over the world opening the doors to a new era of coffee sales in to the luxury status. Hacienda La Esmeralda had the previous 6 records of coffee auction prices and they had the longest run in the Geisha Coffee game so we all expected them to go high in any auction the reached the first places. But we had our hopes up, it was an interesting year since COE in Costa Rica sold the 1st place Geisha Honey at $300.90 per pound, Hacienda La Esmeralda sold their Yeast Process at $340 per pound at their private auction so we had a feeling we could go up to the $300+ in at least the Elida Geisha Washed that broke the record in points on the morning of May 26th, 2018.
July 19th, 2018 at 6pm the auction started, it was slow at the beginning, we were very anxious to what could happen and couple of ours in, our coffees started getting some movement a lot of movement, several companies bidding for them and there was a point when both Elida Geisha Washed and Natural stopped at $601, I, Wilford Jr, called my father to congratulate him in a very emotional moment where both of our Elida Geisha reached the record for the highest ever in coffee auctions. Minutes later EGW went up to $603/lb, it was offically the record and we celebrated. The auction continue up to the point where Elida Geisha Natural reached $803/lb and Elida Geisha Washed reached $661/lb, two records in one night. The auction bidding war for $803 was won by Black Gold Coffee (OkLao) in Taiwan, and 94.66 bid was won by a group led by Saza Coffee. Is worth mentioning the $803 is NOT 94.66.
After 100 years of hard work started by Robert Lamastus and continued by Elida Lamastus while she raised five children as a widow keeping the coffee production on, and then her son Thatcher after many years of hard work looking for ways to keep the farm running even though there was no market for specialty coffee and high farms were complicated to work on he kept the farm running so that years later in the mid 90s his son Wilford sr started with a group of colleagues the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama, a move that changed the specialty coffee industry for ever. Wilford worked hard on making the best possible product on Elida and since 2002 he had won 15 top 3 places including 4 first places and success in BOP auctions, but nothing like 2018 were all the barriers were broken. We want to share these accomplishments with all of our colleagues in Panama because this is a Panamanian victory that will benefit everyone producing Geisha coffee in Panama. But, we want to share these specially with Hacienda La Esmeralda because they opened the Geisha Coffee door, and now all this is possible thanks to Geisha coffee. Geisha changed the coffee industry.
