La Esmeralda,Kenya kopi luwak coffee price supplier

 

Last week, i read about  Matt (aka Tha.Riddla as well as the Best Barista in the US 2006) read about a special event: a tasting at Intelligentsia for the most expensive coffee in the world.

A few months ago, last May, Intelligentsia purchased 100 pounds of La Esmeralda for $130 each (that’s a grand total of $13,000), purportedly the highest amount ever paid for coffee. The beans come from a coffee plant known as Geisha that originated in Ethiopia in the 1930′s, with some of the seeds making their way over to Panama in the 60′s. But it wasn’t until Daniel Peterson took over La Hacienda that the beans were harvested separately, from the rest of the plants on the farm.

The result: a coffee that includes both floral and fruity notes, and was described by Intelligentsia Green Coffee purchaser Geoff Watts as similar to “watching Ali box in his prime.”

Tickets to the event were $25, which also included wine and hors d’oeuvres, and free samples of the coffee. After the event, the coffee would be available for purchase at $99 per half pound. That’s right – HALF pound. And $55 for a quarter pound. Yowzah!

Here’s the nice bonus though: for anyone who went to the tasting, you got to walk away wiht a quarter pound of the beans. With that steep discount, and the fact that it seemed like quite the singular opportunity… I decided to get myself a ticket.