During a session last week I roasted up the last of a fruity gesha from Peru at a really light roast to try and bring out the punchiness. After cooling I dumped it into an Airscape canister in the garage and left the lid off to let the beans really cool down while I finished the rest of my roasts for the day. Needless to say I TOTALLY FORGOT that I left them in the garage with no lid on completely exposed to the ambient air for an entire week.
I started up a roasting session this evening and looked over to discover my mistake and thought that the prolonged exposure to oxygen would have destroyed the 1200g of roasted goodness. Instead of tossing them I decided to brew up an Oxo Zuppa to see how badly they were degraded. To my surprise the brew was bright, acidic, fruity and zesty! 
Like many of you, I’m always trying to limit roasted bean exposure to oxygen until the last possible brewing moment with bags, canisters, vacuum sealers, etc. My mistake has be interested on to what extent that is true? Just for ground beans? Are whole beans more tolerable? Would this roast have been insanely. delicious had I not made that mistake and now it’s just a dang good brew? 
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I’m glad to hear the mistake ended up not having negative results, loosing 1,200g of a gesha is not fun, or cheap! Whole beans are much more tolerant to exposure to oxygen, especially a light roast that could still be releasing carbon dioxide and stabalizing. If it were already rested and then left out for a week the results could be quite different. I think what saved you is the fact that it was a freshly roasted batch. In fact I would go as far as to say that a freshly roasted batch is not effected by being exposed to oxygen.
I’m going to be getting a gesha from Ecuador soon ( only 5lbs) and in the name of not wasting expensive coffee I would like to pick your brain on the topic. Are there any key points to roasting a naturally processed gesha?
Thanks for your response!
I’m sure others have opinions and strategies for roasting Geshas but my approach mimics the way I roast natural Ethiopians usually. Since Geshas are African varietals cultivated in Central/South America anyway (as far as I understand their origin story) I’ve had success roasting them in the same way on the Bullet usually ending the roast around 5-10% development time depending on how light you wanna keep it.
This most recent one followed a recipe I have for fruity Central Americans and it turned out pretty well.
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I did not know geshas were originated in Africa, I was under the impression that they were of South American origin. I will keep that in mind, I usually don’t go past that kind of development anyways, in a 9 minute roast the most I will go is 1:30 but it’s usually less.
Are you still enjoying the gresha from the experiment, and are you going to try to further experiment with exposure to see how long it lasts before it starts loosing it’s finer notes?
I forget where I read it but the Gesha is an African varietal that was brought to the Western hemisphere from early coffee colonists and introduced when trying to globalize the coffee industry.
What batch size do you typically roast? My 775g roasts usually hit FC around 9-9:30 and I try to keep DT to 1min/10%
Interestingly enough now that I’ve put it into an airtight container it isn’t as punchy as before. However, the test brew was on the Oxo while the last two days were full pots in the Aiden.
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Off gassing CO2 is around 1.5 times denser than air, so if the area the coffee was stored at was undisturbed, it was probably somewhat protected by that layer. Also, the fact that that much coffee was not agitated exposing the entirety of the beans, would contribute to a small degradation. But again, I’m assuming it wasn’t laid out on a cookie sheet….
. But then again, I’m not a Q graded cupper, nor are any of my customers, so it’s always wise to strive for perfection and the results will speak for themselves. (One of my customers admitted she adds my Huehue to her Folgers….) Baby steps!
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Just as a side note. There is a fairly detailed rundown of gesha/geisha in the background info near the bottom of this page…
World Coffee Research | geisha, panama
A deeply interesting source for all common cultivars, as it were.
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I usually roast 18oz ( 510g) batches, but I’m debating on wether or not I’m going to try and roast a full kilo.
I have the r2 pro so I believe I have enough power to be able to do it successfully, but I’m a bit hesitant, I don’t want to ruin so much coffee at once haha.
I try to hit the beans very hard in the beggining and taper off strategically to avoid scorching or tipping, then I coast through. If I hit it hard enogh in the beggining it has enough energy to coast through FC and finish smoothly.
I would be interested to know if you have had the same geisha in airtight containers from the begginging and how long that stays punchy
@terryputerbaugh.VWyj [quote=“terryputerbaugh.VWyj, post:6, topic:21467”]
One of my customers admitted she adds my Huehue to her Folgers
[/quote]
BLASPHEMY!!! lol
I hear you on risking greens! 
Try moving up to 775g batches. It’s the sweet spot for me and doesn’t give me as much anxiety with a new bean like going for a full kilo but I’m only on the R1V2 so a full kg batch is playing with fire in my garage.
I wish I could do an actual experiment and report back but the supplier of that gesha limited it to a couple of lbs and I’m all out.