Wilder Lazo, Bella Alejandria 'Lady Geisha'

It's been a while since we've had a coffee from Wilder Lazo on our list, but good things come to those who wait. This 'Lady Geisha' (Wilder's name for this particular lot, named after his wife Laidy) goes through a 60hr anaerobic fermentation stage in the skin before pulping and then another 100hrs anaerobic fermentation in mucilage in sealed tanks before drying on raised beds.

Coffee has been part of Wilder Lazo’s family life for as long as he can remember. His father, Don Segundo Lazo, passed down years of knowledge—how to care for the land, how to grow coffee, and how to respect the work behind every harvest.

But Wilder didn’t follow the typical path. Instead of going straight into coffee, he became a veterinarian, and later earned a Master’s in Genetics. For a long time, he saw coffee as a hard crop with low rewards. Like many people who grew up around it, he mostly associated it with one thing: bitterness.

That changed in 2015, when Wilder travelled to El Salvador for work and found himself at Finca Los Pirineos, helping care for cattle owned by Don Gilberto Baraona, the producer and former owner of the farm. One day, after finishing work, Don Gilberto invited him for a coffee. Wilder politely declined. He didn’t really drink coffee, and he didn’t expect anything special from it.

Then something happened that stayed with him. Don Gilberto brewed a cup for himself, and as the coffee filled the air, Wilder stopped. The aroma was completely different from what he thought coffee could smell like—sweet, clean, inviting. It caught his attention so much that he changed his mind and asked for a cup.

That moment became a turning point: it was the best coffee Wilder had tasted up to that point, and it opened his eyes to a new possibility—coffee could be beautiful, and it could be worth building a future around.

When Wilder returned to Colombia, he looked at his family’s coffee with new curiosity. He gathered seeds from their farms and sent them for genetic testing, wanting to understand exactly what they had. When the results came back, he realised something important: if he wanted to create truly exceptional cups, he needed to upgrade the genetic material on the farm.

Wilder stayed in touch with Don Gilberto and, through that relationship, secured seeds from Los Pirineos—including the rare Maragogype. Thanks to Don Gilberto’s support, Wilder also gained access to a small number of Geisha seeds from a renowned Hacienda in Panama. We've previously had a white honey processed Geisha from Wilder and it was exceptional. This 'Lady Geisha' follows in it's footsteps and has been used at the highest level of competitions at National and World level.

Roast approach

We've roasted this particular coffee fast and light so as not to overpower the delicate fruit and floral characteristics of the variety and process. Because of this approach, it is more suited to filter brewing methods rather than espresso.