The Story of Wilder Lasso
Coffee has been part of Wilder Lasso’s life for as long as he can remember. His father, Don Segundo Lasso, passed on years of knowledge — how to care for the land, how to grow coffee, and how to respect the work behind every harvest.
But Wilder did not follow the typical path. Instead of going straight into coffee, he became a veterinarian and later earned a master’s degree in genetics. For a long time, he saw coffee as a complex crop with little return. Like many who grew up around it, he mostly associated it with one thing — bitterness.
Everything changed in 2015, when Wilder traveled to El Salvador for work and found himself at Finca Los Pirineos, helping care for livestock owned by Don Gilberto Baraona — a producer and former owner of the farm.
One day after work, Don Gilberto invited him for a cup of coffee. Wilder politely declined: he barely drank coffee and did not expect anything special from it.
But something happened that he would never forget.
Don Gilberto prepared a cup for himself, and as the aroma filled the air, Wilder stopped. The smell was nothing like he had imagined — sweet, clean, and inviting. It caught his attention so strongly that he changed his mind and asked for a cup.
That moment became a turning point: it was the best coffee Wilder had ever tasted at that time. It opened up a new possibility — coffee could be beautiful, and it could become the foundation for a future.
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Returning to Coffee
Back in Colombia, Wilder looked at his family’s coffee with new curiosity. He collected seeds from their farms and sent them for genetic testing to understand exactly what they were growing.
When the results came back, he realized something important: to produce truly exceptional cups, the farm’s genetic material needed to be renewed.
Wilder stayed in touch with Don Gilberto, and through this relationship he obtained seeds from Finca Los Pirineos — including the rare Maragogipe. With Don Gilberto’s support, he also gained access to a small quantity of Geisha seeds from Hacienda La Esmeralda in Panama.
He planted these varieties side by side on his farm: Geisha and Maragogipe — each selected for its potential to express unique flavors in the cup.
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The Discovery of Maragesha
A few years later, Wilder noticed something unusual: among these plots, there was a tree that looked different. Not just slightly — but enough to raise questions.
He did what a producer with a background in genetics would do: he collected seeds and sent them for testing.
When the results came back, Wilder was shocked.
This tree contained genetic material from both Geisha and Maragogipe — within a single seed. A rare natural phenomenon had emerged right on his farm.
Wilder named this discovery Maragesha — a coffee that combines the elegance and aromatic clarity of Geisha with the bold character of Maragogipe. Delicate, distinctive, and exceptionally rare.
This is how Maragesha came to be: not as a planned project, but as a discovery — made possible by curiosity, science, and a single cup of coffee that changed the course of Wilder’s life.
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Today
Today, Wilder and his family grow authentically high-quality coffee on their farm, Bella Alejandria, located at 2000 meters above sea level in San Adolfo, Huila.
The conditions on the farm are ideal for producing high-quality coffee, which has made Wilder and his family recognized among some of the world’s best roasters.
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Processing
Anaerobic washed process (120-hour fermentation):
• cherries are handpicked
• depulped on the same day
• placed in sealed tanks for 120 hours of fermentation
• carefully washed after fermentation
• dried on raised beds
• sun-dried for 15–20 days
Maragesha
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