I Don't Get Geisha's

Hey,

I'm going to say something that's going to make a few of you want to reply and tell me I'm wrong.

I don't get geisha's.

And I don't mean I tried one bad bag and gave up. I've had a lot of them at this point. Ones I bought, ones I roasted myself, ones I tasted out somewhere when I wasn't even looking for it. Different farms, different processing, different roasters. And the verdict keeps coming back the same.

It smells incredible. And then I drink it.

And it's just coffee.

The smell writes a check the cup doesn't cash

Let me be fair to geisha for a second, because the smell really is something.

You put your nose over a fresh geisha and it's floral, it's fruity, it's loud. It's so intense in your nose that you almost forget you're about to drink coffee. It gives you this rush of anticipation, this promise. Like whatever's in the cup is going to be a different category of experience than what you're used to.

I had one recently. About four weeks off roast, which is right in that window where a coffee should be settled and singing. Second time drinking that particular one. And the smell did exactly what geisha always does to me. It got me excited.

Then I took a sip.

And it was clean. I'll give it that. Very clean, a little fruity acidity, not offensive. It got a touch more character as it cooled, a little more personality coming through at the lower temp. That part was nice.

But flat. It doesn't represent what the smell promised. It doesn't tell a story. I sat there waiting for the thing everybody talks about, and it just never showed up.

And here's the part that I think matters. I'm a roaster. I roast all my own coffee. So when something tastes flat to me, I don't just shrug and blame the bean. I have options. I can run it light, I can run it fast, I can take it slow, I can develop it more, I can push it darker. I have the burrs and the kettle and the water to chase it down a dozen different ways.

So this isn't a "you brewed it wrong" situation. I've given geisha more chances than almost any coffee in my rotation. And the ones I didn't roast, the ones somebody else dialed in for me, felt the same.

At some point you have to be honest about what you're tasting.

Here's a test I keep coming back to.

Put a geisha next to two or three other coffees. Don't tell yourself which is which. Just drink them objectively, side by side, and try to pick out the one that's revolutionary. The one that's so unique it justifies everything written about it.

For most of us? I don't think we can.

I'm not saying nobody can. I'm not saying it's identical to a grocery store bag. But the gap between "oh that's nice" and "this is a different thing entirely" is a lot smaller than the marketing wants you to believe. You can't really isolate geisha. You can't isolate most coffees. It's always a comparison game. There's always something next to it telling you whether you like it or not.

And that's normal. That's how we taste. But it's worth noticing that the thing we're supposedly worshipping mostly reveals itself through comparison and context, not because it walks into the room and announces itself.

Now let's talk about the money, because this is the part I actually feel strongest about.

Geisha is expensive. Two times, sometimes three times what you'd pay for a coffee that's already considered good. And there are real reasons for that, I'm not going to pretend it's pure scam.

It's almost like saffron. It's a harder plant to grow. It doesn't yield much. It wants very high altitude. It's finicky, the farmers will tell you how much work it takes to house a bean like that. So when you get one grown right, processed right, taken all the way through, you get this thing that genuinely seems a little different. That smell that comes rushing up at you.

So the scarcity is real and the labor is real. I respect the people growing it. None of this is a knock on the farmers.

But scarcity explains the price. It doesn't explain the cup.

Because here's what happens. You pay the premium. The marketing tells you this is magical, this is special, this is going to do something for you. And then you sip it. And you're sitting there wondering if you got duped. You go back to the coffee you actually drink every day, the one that costs a third as much, and you think, honestly, I think I like this one better.

And then you catch yourself. Wait. Do I like it better? Or am I just telling myself that because the other one cost so much? Maybe I'm supposed to be tasting something revolutionary and if I'm not getting it, the problem is me. Maybe my palate isn't mature enough. Maybe everyone else is right and I'm the one missing it.

I've had that exact spiral. Misty eyed over a cup of coffee, wondering if I'm the broken one.

So let me say the thing I wish somebody had said to me.

If you've had a geisha and quietly thought, this is fine, but I don't get what the fuss is about, you're not behind. Your palate isn't immature. You didn't fail the test.

You just tasted a coffee and reported what was actually there.

That's the whole skill, by the way. Being objective about what's in your cup. Not what the bag says, not what the price implies, not what the person on the internet with the affiliate link is tasting. What you taste. I'm critical of everything I drink, no matter what it cost me, and that's the most important habit I've got. If it tastes okay, it tastes okay. And a coffee that tastes okay at triple the price isn't a better deal. It's a worse one. The price makes the "okay" sting more, not less.

I'll hold one door open here, because I try to stay honest. My read on geisha could change. I'm still getting better with my gear, still learning water chemistry, still figuring out how far I can push a coffee with how I roast it. Maybe one day a geisha cracks open for me and I eat these words. That'd be great, actually. I'd love to be wrong.

But this is generally how I feel about them right now. And I've felt it long enough, across enough cups, that I trust it.

We put so many labels and titles and expectations around coffee. Processing methods, varietals, altitudes, awards, price tags. And that's fine, I do it all the time, it's part of the fun.

But at the end of the day it's just coffee. It's a thing we drink in the morning, in the evening, with people we like. The whole point is whether it does something for you when you're sitting there with it.

So if geisha is your jam, I mean that, if you drink it and it sings and it gives you a different perspective on what coffee can be, then let it be exactly that. Drink it happily. Don't let me take that away from you.

And if it leaves you a little cold, if you smell that floral promise and then taste a cup that's merely good, you don't have to pretend either. You're not missing something. You're just paying attention.

That's the only thing that actually matters. Not the variety. Not the hype. Not what it cost. Whether the cup in front of you does something for you.

Mine, with geisha, mostly doesn't. And I've finally stopped feeling weird about saying so.

Your turn

I want to hear the honest version from you, not the version you think you're supposed to give.

Have you ever had a geisha that actually lived up to the smell? Where the cup really did match all that floral promise? I'd love to hear about it, what it was, how it was brewed, what you tasted.

Or are you quietly in my camp? Smelled like a dream, tasted like just coffee, and you've been wondering if you were the only one.

Hit reply and tell me. I read every single one.

Oke