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IT IS, AT FIRST HEARING, SHOCKING, this idea that there is a $100-per-pound coffee.
It is also shocking at second hearing.
By about the fifth or sixth hearing, a person probably has managed to control the expression of amazement and can start asking the obvious questions. What is this ultra-costly coffee, where does it come from and why does it cost about 4 cents per bean, when most good coffee can be had for about 2 1/2 beans to the penny?
Oh, and one more: Is it really that good?
This coffee that costs more than most coffeemakers is called, in Chicago, Hacienda La Esmeralda Especial, named after the upscale farm that produced it. It comes from Panama, in limited quantities, and it has won multiple tasting competitions and blown away old records for price at auction.
It was sold for a time this summer through the Intelligentsia Coffee chain here in Chicago. That time is, alas, over. Intelligentsia has sold out, for this year at least.
You can, however, still buy beans of the same variety, from the same farm, and for a bargain, relatively speaking (more on that later). But you can also start saving up for early next summer, when Intelligentsia plans to buy more of the Esmeralda at auction and again offer it for sale.
While you're at it, you may well want to start preparing for more super-premium coffees across the board. Experts say the Panamanian coffee's runaway success in the marketplace is likely to embolden more farmers to nurture select, small-batch coffees, more coffee houses to seek them out and sell them, and more drinkers to develop the kind of tasting vocabulary and upscale preferences that used to be the province of wine snobs.
And why wouldn't they? I bought half a pound of the Esmeralda, partly because I knew my expense account would cover it but also because I really like coffee and had to taste it. Closing my eyes, I still can summon the distinctive flavor, like water heated to near-boiling and then allowed to drip through a pile of baked and ground-up coffee beans.
Only more so. This coffee was remarkably floral and surprisingly sweet and citrusy, but not fleetingly so. Despite the lighter roast Intelligentsia applied, there was a richness to the taste, especially surprising to those of us who have been trained (by Starbucks) to think that dark roast equals deep flavor.
Was it that much better than other coffees? My answer is the same as my answer to that question asked about the few $100 wines I've tasted. Not on a price-per-sip basis. Yes, the Esmeralda dances wildly across the palate, but a good Ethiopian Yirgacheffe has very similar flavor characteristics and does a pretty lively dance itself.
Others may be willing to shell out big bucks, though, both for the tasting experience and for the conversation value of letting your dinner guests know what they're drinking.
What they will all want to know is this: Why?
Why does this coffee cost $100 a pound ($103.90, to be precise) while other coffees, very good though they may be, might cost $11 or, pushing it, $15?
In a nutshell, the coffee reached the pricing stratosphere, according to Geoff Watts, the chief bean buyer at Intelligentsia, because it consistently has blown judges away at tasting competitions and because it was sold in an online auction where a bit of frenzy was allowed to take over.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0610240386oct25,0,3862901.column?coll=chi-business-hed
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