In The News

BOQUETE, Panama – Panama's Hacienda La Esmeralda gourmet “geisha” coffee, which has broken world price records in online coffee auctions, is now so sought after that the farm is planning its own Internet auction this year.

In a bold step never before attempted by a single estate, the farm in the cool highlands above Panama's western town of Boquete will put its entire crop up for bidding in a private auction, farm administrator Daniel Peterson said.

“We are going to auction all of the geisha together. This is the fairest form of exchange,” Peterson told Reuters in the warehouse storing this year's harvest, just 200 60-kg bags.

The farm's coffee is popular with high-end roasters and connoisseurs drawn to its sweet jasmine flavors that win the rare beans high scores at cupping events.

The coffee had cultivated a reputation similar to fine wines grown in specific regions, and is now one of the world's most expensive varieties.

Last year Hacienda's small lot sold at an unprecedented $130 per pound at the “Best of Panama” online auction, where bids were taken by telephone after passing the computer system's maximum price of $99.99 per pound.

Peterson said the geisha coffee would likely be sold in roughly 120-kg lots, with the green coffee shipped in vacuum packs. The date of the auction has not been set although the farm is aiming for May. Bidding could start at $5 per pound.

“We are going to participate in the auction but I am worried about the pricing, it is expensive,” Yuji Sato, a coffee buyer for Japanese firm Wataru & Co., told Reuters through an interpreter after a recent visit to the famed farm.

Sato and some other high-profile buyers say they prefer to negotiate directly instead of competing at an auction.

“It would be hard for us to buy all of our coffees at auction,” said David Pohl from northern California specialty roaster Equator Coffee, which purchased 60 kg of the Hacienda's geisha coffee last year at just under $13 per pound.

Pohl said he strongly backed an idea by the farm's owners to auction the lots according to the exact date the beans were picked, given the coffee's fame.

“I love that idea. There are quality differences to be noted when there are different dates,” Pohl said by telephone.

The move by the farm shows how far online auctions have come since they were started in the late 1990s as a way to separate high-quality coffees from the conventional market.

It took time for the model to catch on but it has worked well for small producers like Panama, where the scarcity of the fine, high-altitude geisha beans helps boost prices.

The country produces under 180,000 60-kg bags of green washed arabica per year, less than 10 percent the volume grown by neighboring Costa Rica.

The geisha coffees come from a variety introduced to Panama in the 1960s but virtually abandoned early on due to low yields.

Growing demand from new specialty roasters is convincing farmers like Peterson to expand. The 14-hectare Hacienda farm will nearly double its planted area next year.

That would help ease buyers' concerns that supplies are so low the coffee can only be used for special promotions instead of being offered to customers year-round.

“You put it up online, people go crazy and it is gone. It's a novelty,” said Pohl.

The Toast of Roasts

When the auction began on the afternoon of May 29, six cartels had set their sights on 500 pounds of an almost mythical Panamanian product. For eight hours, they bid and counterbid online, with one determined group lodging a total of 27 separate offers—all in vain. After a frenzied tit-for-tat between the final two contenders, the price for the juggernaut known as La Esmeralda Special steamrolled past the record set the year before, fetching an astonishing $130 per pound. The winning bid was more than 11 times the price of the auction’s next-highest-earning coffee bean.

Yes, coffee beans.

Anything described as “explosively floral on the palate” by the Specialty Coffee Association of America might be expected to attract a certain amount of attention, especially after being named the world’s best coffee by the association for three years running. A judge from Kansas City scored it a perfect 100 in this year’s Best of Panama competition. A Seattle coffee executive blogged that “its aroma practically sings to you from between endless rows of other exemplary coffees.” A New York barista dubbed it the “undisputed heavyweight champion of coffee.”

La Esmeralda Special is all the more remarkable given that, a decade ago, the spindly trees that produced the beans were little more than windbreaks owned by the family of a prominent American banker. But while the hefty price may be a curiosity, Esmeralda’s popularity signals a broader shift in an industry where quantity, not quality, has long reigned supreme. In a post-Starbucks world, specialty coffee has become a hot commodity, and La Esmeralda Special is far from alone in the upper echelons.

“I think we’re seeing a fundamental shift in the coffee industry in terms of making coffee much more of a personal and exciting beverage than it ever has been,” says Susie Spindler, executive director of the Alliance for Coffee Excellence, an organization in Missoula, Montana, that runs the Cup of Excellence competitions and online auctions in eight countries.

The most recent rush of excitement has been over a roasted bean variety called Geisha. Originally from Ethiopia, the relatively low-yielding but disease-resistant Geisha trees were transplanted to Central America in the 1950s. They were soon yanked from coffee farms, however, as the market shifted to mass production in response to exploding demand.

In 1964, Swedish-born Rudolph Peterson, then chief executive of Bank of America, bought Hacienda La Esmeralda, a dairy and beef farm in Panama’s Chiriqui highlands. The property was eventually passed on to his son Price, who in 1996 expanded the family’s holdings, buying a nearby farm with a “mish-mash” of coffee trees on its upper reaches, according to Price’s son Daniel. Almost immediately, the family could smell and taste something special in the cups of coffee produced from the farm’s beans.

When they isolated the taller Geishas and planted more at a slightly higher altitude for the 2003 to 2004 season, the coffee really blossomed, Daniel says. In 2004, La Esmeralda Special swept the intense Best of Panama and Rainforest Alliance cupping competitions—at which the few dozen entrants with the best aroma, sweetness, mouthfeel, flavor, aftertaste, and balance are identified—and set the first of its auction records with an online price of $21 a pound. “This is a flavor that had not been found in the Americas,” Daniel says. It can now be found at high-end online retailers and some of the best coffeehouses in the U.S. and Canada.

At a basic level, industry insiders are increasingly defining well-regarded specialty coffees by what they are not: blended or—Sacre bleu!—French roasted. Jeff Taylor, co-owner of PT’s Coffee Roasting Co., in Topeka, Kansas, says top buyers, wholesalers, and retailers are more interested in single-origin coffees and lighter roasts that highlight a bean’s best features.

Like a vineyard’s grand reserve wine, the finest coffee beans are often found in microlots, or small subsets of farms like Hacienda La Esmeralda, where, as Taylor puts it, “all of the stars align.” In the partial shade of the higher-elevation lot, Esmeralda’s Geisha trees may not be models of productivity, but the slower cycles let them pack more sugars and oils into their beans and turn heads in coffee competitions.

Coffee enthusiasts also make comparisons with the wine industry’s success in marketing nuanced vintages; some boast that chemists have identified about 850 natural compounds contributing to the flavor of roasted coffee—many more than in a classic Bordeaux. An Ethiopian coffee called Biloya Selection One is acclaimed by PT’s Coffee for its “syrupy pineapple sweetness that’s supported with deep blueberry overtones,” while an offering from Panama’s Bambito Estate is lauded by Groundwork Coffee Co., a Los Angeles firm, for its “juicy, apple-cider-like texture and sweetness that pairs decadently with tones of dark chocolate, pepper, and clove.”

On a leafy side street in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, other discoveries are showcased at Café Grumpy, where cheerful baristas preside over steady sales of individually brewed, single-origin coffees and espressos. Coffeehouse co-owner Caroline Bell says she secured a bag of the prized Esmeralda beans before May’s recordbreaking auction, through a roaster who had a direct relationship with the farm. A 16-ounce cup of the famous java was the most expensive item on her August menu and, at $8, was far closer to what nearby restaurants were charging for a glass of pinot noir.

With its notes of Italian bergamot, orange rind, lavender, and jasmine, the coffee was worth every cent, according to Café Grumpy barista Jay Murdock. Customers apparently agreed, snapping up about 80 pounds of the café’s 100-pound allotment before Labor Day. (The café is saving the rest for the holidays.) Bell says that ultra-discriminating coffee drinkers are akin to those who shop at farmers markets: It’s the difference between buying waxy tomatoes in a supermarket and springing for a Brandywine heirloom cultivar. Or perhaps it’s the difference between the aroma of a boxed wine and the toast-and-cherry-tinged nose of a ’95 Shafer cabernet sauvignon.

Coffee: The New Wine?
A look at the world's most expensive coffee, with CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabrera

Vancouver's priciest coffee

I usually take milk with my coffee, but adding a dairy product to Vancouver's most expensive brew somehow felt sacrilegious, like grease-penciling a moustache on Raphael's Madonna del Granduca.

"I wouldn't do that," said Joaquin Quian, manager of the bustling West Hastings Steet coffee bistro Caff Artigiano, which begins selling Hacienda la Esmeralda Especial - at $15 for an eight-ounce cup - next week at all five Caff Artigiano outlets.

Hacienda, which the folks at Caff Artigiano call in a press release "the world's best coffee, EVER!" comes from Panama, and was given an unusually high score of 96.4 out of 100 by the normally snooty judges at the Specialty Coffee Association of America's 2007 Roasters Guild Cupping Pavilion Competition. The judges liked its aroma, its acidity and the lasting aftertaste.

It sold for $130 US a pound in its raw, green-bean form. Caff Artigiano bought 80 pounds of it. In addition to selling single cupfuls, they will also sell beans in half-pound bags for $135 a bag.

"People out there love coffee," said Quian, whose bistro previously sold a highly rated Brazilian coffee for $5 a cup. Caff Artigiano bought a six-month supply of the Brazilian coffee, which sold out in less than four months.

On Friday, Quian demonstated the proper way to serve a cup of this black gold. He ground the beans, added the right amount of water, and put it all in a french press, which each customer is served along with a small cup containing warm water.

"You must rinse the oil from your mouth with the water," says Quian, halting my impulse to use it for a finger bowl. "That's the best way to taste the coffee."

Once in the French press, it's best to wait three minutes before lowering the plunger. Some coffee aficionados actually use a timer.

Like a good wine, the coffee will taste better if its allowed to sit and, to use wine terminology, breathe.

Before taking my first step toward coffee nirvana, Quian had one more bit of advice: to enhance the taste experience, one should slurp the fluid, mixing oxygen with the drink. I suppose you could do the same with a straw, but straws are in short supply at a coffee bar.

Well, I'm no snob, and on first slurp I thought the drink was thin - not Victoria Beckham thin, but not full-bodied Oprah Winfrey either. However, just as expert Quian suggested, the more it cooled and the longer it sat in the cup, the better it tasted. By that last sip, I was ready to buy myself a bag of the stuff.

Originally posted: May 30, 2007
Panamanian coffee grabs $130 a pound price at auction

So who's got the best coffee in the whole world? It's starting to seem like Panama's coffee estate Hacienda La Esmeralda has the market cornered. For the third year in a row, the estate snagged the "world's best coffee" title at the Specialty Coffee Association of America's Roasters Guild Cupping Pavilion Competition earlier this month. And on May 29, the estate's "Esmeralda Especial" fetched a record auction price of $130 a pound in an online auction.
So is Esmeralda really so especial? Is it really worth about 100 times the cost that commercial coffee usually goes for on the commodity market?
Until we get our hands on a fresh bag of the new stuff from Chicago-based Intelligentsia (which will be getting some of this batch in a month or two), we have this account to rely on from Trib Internet Critic Steve Johnson.
Last year (another prize-winning year for La Esmeralda), Johnson brought a bag of the estate's coffee into the office -- hey it WAS an Internet auction and you need a lot of coffee to stay up late nights reading all those Web sites -- and brewed up a pot for the office and here's how it dripped out.

May 30, 2007 06:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

World’s Best Coffee Captures Record Price in Online Auction

Panama’s Hacienda La Esmeralda Sets World Mark for Coffee Sale of $130 a Pound LONG BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--World famous coffee estate, Hacienda La Esmeralda, set another record when its Esmeralda Especial coffee sold for a stunning $130 a pound during an online auction on May 29. The Panama coffee producer was recognized for producing the world’s best coffee during the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s (SCAA) 2007 Roasters Guild Cupping Pavilion Competition on May 7, an event Hacienda La Esmeralda also captured in 2005 and 2006. This year marks the third time in four years that the Panama coffee producer sold coffee for a world record-setting price.

After nearly eight hours of negotiating by six different bidders, 10 bags of Esmeralda Especial – each weighing 50 pounds – sold for $65,000. Commercial-grade coffee is currently selling in the commodity market for just above a dollar per pound. The winning bid was entered by an alliance consisting of 49^th Parallel Roasters, Coffee Klatch Roasting, Groundwork Coffee Company, Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea, The Roasterie, Roastermasters.com (Willoughby’s Coffee & Tea) and Zoka Coffee Roaster and Tea Co.

“Today’s sale of Esmeralda Especial affirms the decision made by 30 experienced roasters during our recent SCAA Cupping Pavilion event, which Hacienda La Esmeralda won this year,” said SCAA President, Dawn Jantsch. “The sale also supports the position specialty coffee holds as a premier beverage in the culinary industry.”

Price Peterson, owner of Hacienda La Esmeralda, said, “The response of buyers participating in today’s auction underscores the current demand for premier specialty coffee. The exceptional demand for Esmeralda Especial as well as the other coffees entered in this auction also serves to raise the awareness of the premier quality of specialty coffee that is grown by the farmers of Panama.”

In addition to Esmeralda Especial, 24 other lots of specialty coffee totaling nearly 19-thousand pounds – ranging in price from $1.95 to $11.80 a pound – were sold in the online auction, which was hosted by the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama. All of the coffee sold in the online auction received high marks during the “Best of Panama” cupping competition held in April. To view the results of the auction, visit: http://auction.stoneworks.com/includes/pa2007/final_results.html.

Celebrating its silver anniversary in 2007, the SCAA is the world’s largest coffee trade association. SCAA members are located in over 40 countries and represent every segment of the specialty coffee industry, from coffee growers to coffee roasters and retailers. The SCAA’s mission is to be the recognized authority on specialty coffee, providing a common forum for the development and promotion of coffee excellence and sustainability. The SCAA’s dedication to excellence in coffee is realized through the setting of quality standards for the industry; conducting research on coffee, equipment and perfection of craft; and providing education, training, resources and business services for members. The SCAA’s annual conference is held in a different U.S. city each year and is the coffee industry’s largest gathering and exhibition.

Hacienda La Esmeralda de Panamá fue reconocida por tener el mejor café especial del mundo, por tercer año consecutivo.

Se informó que este productor de café ha impuesto una marca al ganar este año la competencia del gremio de tostadores de la Asociación Americana de Café Especial, celebrada en Long Beach, California.

Hacienda La Esmeralda, ubicada en Boquete, provincia de Chiriquí, y Carmen Estate Coffee, en Volcán, fueron dos de los 104 cafés finos de todo el mundo que participaron en esta competencia internacional que duró tres días.

De igual manera, durante la misma conferencia y exhibición de la Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), la certificadora de productos Ecológicos Rainforest Alliance anunció los resultados de su evento "Cupping for Quality", en el cual un panel de más de 15 catadores independientes escogieron a La Esmeralda y a Carmen Estate Coffee como los mejores.

martes 22 de mayo de 2007
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Cafés panameños dominan competencias mundiales

Hacienda La Esmeralda y Carmen Estate lograron nuevos galardones en el negocio cafetalero.

Los productores nacionales se preparan para subastar 25 lotes de sus mejores muestras el 29 de mayo.

Cuando se habla de café panameño Geisha, de Hacienda La Esmeralda, todos hacen venia en el mundo cafetalero. La reina de los cafés especiales en Panamá no deja de sorprender y este fin de semana colocó una presea más a su corona, tras alcanzar la catación internacional "Cupping Pavilion 2007".

La finca cafetalera que opera en Jaramillo, Boquete, dominó por cuarto año consecutivo ese evento internacional, donde se evaluaron 104 muestras de café de todo el mundo.

Pero la Geisha panameña no estuvo sola y junto a ella se colocó en séptimo lugar su compatriota Carmen Estate, otra finca local que produce café de alta calidad.

"Se ha trabajado duro en los procesos y allí están los resultados", dijo Carlos Fransechi, representante de Carmen Estate S.A.

Pero los galardones no terminaron allí. Ambas fincas también fueron notificadas oficialmente como las ganadoras del la competencia de Rainforest Alliance, principal certificadora de café orgánico de Estados Unidos.

El sabor a jazmín de la "geisha" y su peculiar fragancia dejaron en el camino a otras 100 muestras de café orgánico de 11 países productores, según un informe oficial de Rainforest Alliance. En segundo lugar se ubicó Carmen Estate, que recibió 88.9 puntos, por encima de productos de Colombia, El Salvador, México y Nicaragua. En los últimos cuatros años ambas fincas han dominado ese evento.

"Las prácticas sostenibles rinden un producto superior", comentó Sabrina Vigilante, jefa de comercialización de Rainforest Alliance. "Los granjeros están mejorando la conservación del suelo y del agua".

La subasta internacional de los cafés panameños podría batir nuevos récords de precios este año. Los 25 lotes que entrarán en la "puja y repuja" de fin de mes son codiciados por al menos 75 compradores en todo el mundo. La subasta electrónica se realizará el 29 de mayo.

"Son dos eventos mundiales que dejan muy claro la calidad de café que se está produciendo en el país", comentó Clemente Vega, presidente de la Asociación de Cafés Especiales de Panamá.

A pesar de las promesas del Gobierno en incrementar los incentivos y ayudas a los productores de café de alta calidad, todavía no hay ningún proyecto concreto.

"Estamos preparando una nota al Mida para saber en qué quedaron las promesas para el sector", dice Vega.

Las exportaciones de café mostraron una caída de 3.2% en 2006, debido a la reducción del parque cafetalero en distritos de Tierra Altas, como Volcán y Boquete.

Specialty Coffee Association of America Reveals World’s Best Specialty Coffee

Panama’s Hacienda La Esmeralda Wins an Unprecedented Third Consecutive SCAA Roasters Guild Cupping Pavilion Competition

SCAA’s 19th Annual Conference & Exhibition
LONG BEACH, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Panama coffee estate, Hacienda La Esmeralda, reached the highest level of coffee supremacy May 7 when it was recognized for having the world’s best specialty coffee for a record third consecutive year. The coffee producer set the mark by winning this year’s Specialty Coffee Association of America’s (SCAA) 2007 Roasters Guild Cupping Pavilion Competition in Long Beach, Calif. The coffee producer previously won the 2005 and 2006 Cupping Pavilions. The 2007 event took place at SCAA’s 19th Annual Conference & Exhibition.

Hacienda La Esmeralda’s winning coffee–from the Jaramillo region of Boquete, Panama–was one of 104 of the finest coffees that participated in the three-day international competition.

2007 Cupping Pavilion Results:
1. Hacienda La Esmeralda, Panama
2. El Injerto, S.A., Guatemala
3. Delicafe S.A., Costa Rica
4. Jesus Mountain Coffee Company, Nicaragua
5. Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union, Ethiopia
6. Ka’u Farm & Ranch Company LLC, Hawaii
7. Carmen Estate, Panama
8. Cafe Importa, Colombia
9. Ka’u Farm & Ranch Company LLC, Hawaii
10. Volcafe Specialty Coffee, Ethiopia
11. C.I. Racafe & Cia S.C.A., Colombia
12. Cafe de El Salvador, El Salvador
More than 30 experienced judges selected the winning coffee by cupping, or thoroughly evaluating the scent and taste of each coffee sample. The judges specifically assessed six distinct attributes of the coffee samples, including: fragrance, aroma, taste, flavor, aftertaste and body.

Certified Sustainable Coffee Recognized for Outstanding Quality: Results from Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality Events Announced at SCAA Conference

May 7, 2007

The Rainforest Alliance has announced the results of two recent Cupping for Quality events, where a panel of independent coffee experts evaluated coffee from nearly 100 Rainforest Alliance Certified farms in 11 countries at the headquarters of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) in Long Beach, California.

Top scorers from the cupping events, which took place last month and last December, included farms from Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Nicaragua and Mexico. With all countries represented receiving an average score of more than 80, which is the threshold to receive specialty status, the results of the cupping events show that sustainable farming practices produce high-quality coffee.

"When farmers are meeting a set of holistic standards covering soil and water conservation and good worker treatment, those responsible practices result in the production of better beans," said Sabrina Vigilante, senior marketing manager in the Rainforest Alliance's sustainable agriculture program. "These results show that a range of industry experts agree. Put simply: Sustainable practices yield a premium product."

The top-scoring farms were announced at the Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Coffee Breakfast last Saturday at the Specialty Coffee Association of America conference in Long Beach, California. Farms earning some of the highest marks included:

Note: The names of some top-scoring farms are not included because their release forms are pending.

Average scores of Rainforest Alliance Certified farms in each participating country:

Improved cultivation and processing techniques on Rainforest Alliance Certified farms result in higher quality beans. Our standards encompass all aspects of coffee production and include requirements such as pesticide reduction, soil and water conservation, and worker protection, which all translates into better growing conditions for coffee.

The judges used the SCAA cupping form and protocol and used 10 criteria worth a maximum of 10 points each. They evaluated coffees for fragrance/aroma, flavor, aftertaste, acidity, body, uniformity, balance, cleanliness, sweetness and overall impression. Cuppers were told the country of origin of the coffees, altitude, processing/milling details, varietal and harvesting period.

Rainforest Alliance Certified coffees have consistently earned high marks at international cupping events. Last year, 12 lots of Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee earned the coveted Q grade at a cupping organized by the Coffee Quality Institute in Guatemala. To make the grade, coffees must score at least 80 points of a possible 100 and have no primary defects. Also last year, for the second year in a row, the winner of the World Barista Championship featured Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee in his drinks. The winning barista, Klaus Thomsen, used coffee from Daterra, which was the first farm in Brazil to earn Rainforest Alliance certification. The 2005 winner, Troels Overdal Poulsen, also used Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee from Daterra.

I recently received a press release that sounded snobby and hucksterish: "Intelligentsia Roasting Works Offers Up the World's Most Expensive Coffee." It explained that for a limited time I could purchase a half-pound of roasted Panama Hacienda La Esmeralda Geisha beans for a mere $51.95. So I bought some.

I've got to say that despite my initial skepticism, this brew was really something—a Yirgacheffe on Central American acid, so to speak. The taste and silky feel lingered in my mouth long after my last sip. Cupper and coffee consultant Willem Boot, who is planting Geisha seedlings on his own Panamanian property, says the coffee hit him "like a thunderbolt," with its tamarind fruit acidity, mango-papaya sweet flavor notes and lingering perfumy, floral finish.

But is it $100-a-pound good? How much is coffee worth? How much should the average consumer be willing to pay for a cup of coffee? My short answer is that people should pay whatever they are comfortable paying. You can certainly get very good roasted beans for $10 a pound, one-tenth the price I paid for my Panamanian rarity. But I would urge you to expand your mind and your budget when it comes to exploring unusual coffee experiences.

It has always astonished me how cheap U. S. consumers are when it comes to coffee. We seem to think that it is our birthright to drink inexpensive, bottomless cups. Indeed, every time the price of coffee has shot up quickly, Americans have mounted boycott campaigns, politicians have held hearings to investigate the Latin American or Communist plots behind the rise, and coffee roasters have cheapened their blends.

Yet, interestingly, many of the same consumers are willing to pay quite a lot for a fine bottle of wine, understanding that grapes are not just grapes, and that where they grow and what vintners do with them makes a great deal of difference.

The Geisha beans illustrate just how far the coffee industry must go to get anywhere near viniculture in people's perception. There are not that many varieties of arabica coffee bean. They originated in Ethiopia. Typica beans are probably the most direct descendent. Bourbon beans were first discovered on the island of that name (now called Reunion), near Madagascar. Caturra and Maragogype evolved in Brazil. More recent hybrids, such as Catuai, Mundo Novo and Catimor, are more disease-resistant and have higher yields, but they were not bred for taste.

Now, the Geisha beans are taking the specialty coffee world by storm. They come out of Panama, from the farm of grower Price Peterson, but their origin can be traced to Ethiopia. In 1931, the British consulate authorized the collection of ripe cherries of forest coffee (growing wild in the rainforest understory) from a region called Gesha, in southwest Ethiopia, and had them sent to a Kenyan agricultural center. The Amharic name was changed to the more familiar Japanese term. The variety eventually reached Panama in the 1960s.

Until recently, no one thought to harvest and process the Geisha beans separately. Price Peterson credits his son, Daniel, with cupping beans from different areas of their farm in the Boquete region of western Panama and discovering that a small, high valley planted to Geishas produced an extraordinary brew. The entire harvest yielded only 100 bags, and I sampled the intense flavor of those rare beans that morning.

You can brew about 40 cups of strong coffee with a pound of beans. That means that I paid about $2.50 for my extraordinary cup—considerably less than what I would pay for the same volume of anything at Starbucks.

Chicago-based Intelligentsia is one of the cutting-edge, fanatical coffee roasters that scours the world for tiny lots of incredible beans. You will learn more about their philosophies, personalities, adventures and discoveries in future columns.

For the record, however, the Panamanian Geishas are not the world's most expensive coffee beans. That honor goes to Kopi Luwak, rare beans that have been processed through the intestines of an Indonesian civet cat. They cost $160 or more per pound. Perhaps I'll sample some for a future column.

Wine & Food Feature
Most Expensive Coffee
Hyon Jung Lee 07.20.06, 12:30 AM ET

The most expensive cup of joe, in the minds of many coffee drinkers, is a $4 coffee at Starbucks. Perhaps a half-caf soy almond latte prepared by a favorite barista.

But for serious coffee connoisseurs, people who are looking for a world-class drink rather than a "gourmet" cup, the top fare is made from the highest-quality beans in the world. The beans come from very specific regions and are prized for their unique characteristics. Cultivated on small farms, they are coddled by farmers who care more about quality than quantity.

You wouldn't dare add milk or sugar to coffee of this caliber--it would compete with the beans' natural sweetness, and distinct flavors and aromas.

Taste ten of the most expensive coffees in the world.

Such top-quality coffees are rare--and prices for them are accordingly high. Superior beans command retail prices of over $100 per pound in what the Specialty Coffee Association of America, a Long Beach, Calif.-based trade association, describes as a $11 billion-plus specialty coffee market.

We have searched the specialty coffee market for the priciest coffee in the world--not the most expensive cups of coffee, which can vary by a matter of cents--but the priciest specialty beans.

They include such products as Hacienda la Esmeralda Geisha from Panama, which made news at the end of May when it set an auction record of $50.25 per pound. Praised for its fruit and floral flavors, it retails for more than $100 per pound. There are also novelty coffees, whose prices are influenced not just by quality, but by the romance or uniqueness of their origins.

St. Helena coffee, for instance, is a high-quality coffee grown on the remote South Atlantic island to which Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled in 1815. Then there's the Indonesian Kopi Luwak, a coffee that is only roasted after it's been eaten and excreted by a palm civet.

The U.S. coffee market looks very different today than it did a half-century ago. From the 1950s to the 1990s, a few small roasters managed to obtain high-quality beans for select markets like New York's Little Italy or Berkeley, Calif. But most coffee was sold in cans, and consumers were more concerned with price and consistency than taste.

In 1962, the U.S. reached a peak in per capita coffee consumption: The average person was drinking more than three cups of murky brown swill per day. Despite the proliferation of Starbucks (nasdaq: SBUX - news - people ), which was founded in 1971, today the average American drinks less than two cups of coffee per day. That coffee is significantly tastier, however.

Coffee evangelists have long sought to elevate coffee above commodity status. For years, great coffees were blended away, used to make fairly uniform-tasting brews. Little recognition was given to the individual farmer, and the unique flavor profiles of different varieties of coffees, or coffees from different micro-climates, were ignored.

With the specialty coffee boom of the '90s, great beans are now making a more direct journey from crop to cup. Specialty roasters and retailers buy beans directly from the farmers, paying premiums that encourage them to improve growing methods and produce superior beans. The beans are transported and carefully roasted before being sold to consumers. "While you cannot make a mediocre coffee good during the roasting process, you can ruin a great coffee during roasting," said Mike Ferguson of SCAA.

George Howell, founder of the George Howell Coffee Company and its Terroir Coffee brand based in Acton, Mass., emphasizes that coffee is a "noble beverage," worthy of the same respect as fine wine. A 30-year veteran of the coffee industry, he has pushed to decommoditize coffee.

After creating models of economic sustainability for coffee farmers for both the United Nations and the International Coffee Organization, Howell co-founded the Cup Of Excellence program, among the most esteemed award programs for coffees. The strict competition selects the best coffee produced in a country for a particular year. The winners are auctioned off online.

Many of the most expensive coffees in the world are Cup of Excellence winners. In compiling our rankings, we examined auction prices for green (unroasted) beans and spoke to roasters and trade organizations around the country. Only single origin coffees were considered, which means that the beans come from one place. Blends were not considered, because they can contain inferior beans from unidentified sources.

In general, we ranked the coffees by retail price. One exception is El Injerto from the Huehuetenango region of Guatemala, which is not yet available but is expected to retail at more than $50 per pound. The second is Fazenda Santa Ines from Brazil, which has already been bought up and is only available by the cup; we ranked it by its auction price of nearly $50 per pound. We rounded all figures to the nearest dollar.

As expensive as these coffees are, when compared with wine, the best coffee beans are a relative bargain.

"If you pay $10 per pound for the coffee you brew at home, a cup of coffee costs less than a Coke from a 12-pack," Howell points out. Even if you pay twice as much for a pound of beans, an entire pot of coffee will still cost less than a glass of wine from a $10 bottle.

Taste ten of the most expensive coffees in the world.

Interest percolating for rare cup of joe

What's touted as the world's most expensive coffee hails from Panama, but Chicago coffee lovers with a hankering -- and a hefty wallet -- don't have to travel that far to get it.

Chicago coffeemaker Intelligentsia Roasting Works is offering Hacienda la Esmeralda Geisha coffee for $51.95 -- per half pound.

Customers on Intelligentsia's e-mail list got first crack at buying the rare coffee online on Thursday, and by late afternoon, 17 orders had been placed. On Monday, Intelligentsia will offer the beans to the general public in its stores and on the Web.

But it's a limited-edition sale. Only 15 pounds will be available for purchase at each of the three Intelligentsia stores, and 45 pounds for online sales.

The coffee, grown on a farm in the mountains of Western Panama, fetched a record-breaking wholesale price of $50.25 a pound at an online auction hosted by the Specialty Coffee Association of America on May 30. The same coffee, which scored 94.6 out of 100 in a cupping competition in April, sold for $21 a pound at auction in 2004, a record then.

"There was this buzz immediately, that this was really something extraordinary," said Mike Ferguson, spokesman for the Specialty Coffee Association of America, describing the first time the geisha coffee was tasted in competition.

So what makes this coffee so special? Even the Peterson clan, whose estate grows the coffee, remain somewhat perplexed.

"We are not really sure yet whether this cup is the result of the micro-climate in the small valley, the rather unusual variety of coffee planted there, or a combination of both," Price Peterson, whose grandfather founded Hacienda la Esmeralda, writes on their Web site.

Doug Zell, founder of Intelligentsia, which works directly with growers, said consumer interest in specialty coffee is taking off much as it did with wine in recent decades. Do the math, Zell says, and coffee is an even better value, even at $50 a pound.

"You buy a glass of wine for $12, nobody complains. The elevation toward a marvelous culinary experience is happening in coffee and I don't think we should be ashamed," he said. "For us, the hope was always to elevate this ... so it was never just a cup of coffee."

Zell has some advice for those those who get their hands on some of the geisha coffee and plan to brew a pot at home.

"Start with great water, either filtered or spring water," he said. Use two tablespoons of coffee for every 6-ounce cup. Whether you're using a French press or machine, aim for one that can reach 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

Panama City, May 31 - Geishas are famous for being shy and retiring, but in Panama they are breaking world records and even putting Brazilian beauties in the shade.

A Panamanian specialty coffee, a rare variety of the geisha plant strain, sold for a record-breaking $50.25 a lb. in an online auction hosted by the Specialty Coffee Association of America late Tuesday.

At over 50 times the price of standard beans, the geisha beat the previous online record price of $49.75 a lb., held by a Brazilian bean.

Specialty coffee auctions gained popularity after a global slump, when prices paid on the benchmark New York "C" contract didn't cover production costs and many farmers focused on higher-quality beans for gourmet consumers that could sell at a premium price.

Some analysts say better prices for generic coffee in recent harvests have made the auctions increasingly irrelevant, but Daniel Price Peterson, whose farm produced the winning lot, disagrees.

"Specialty coffee and auctions will be here, even if standard prices go up. The 'C' market is like playing Russian Roulette with your farm. It goes up and down, and you can't lower production costs that much," he told Reuters.

His winning geisha ripened in the shade of old guava trees at 1,600 meters (5,249 feet) above sea level at the Hacienda La Esmeralda farm in the town of Boquete in the western highlands of Panama.

Price Peterson, who also heads Panama's Specialty Coffee Association, told Reuters he was in shock at the price his beans had fetched.

"I get goose bumps just thinking about it. I'm totally flabbergasted, I'm absolutely walking on air today," he told Reuters Wednesday.

Last year beans from the same farm sold for $20.10 a lb.; in 2004 they sold at $21 a lb. -- a record at that time.

Price Peterson's geisha scored 94.6 points out of a possible 100 at a taste-test in April, with judges competing for superlatives and florid descriptions of its flavor.

One judge joked that even though he was an atheist he saw God when he tried the geisha, which he said had hints of bergamot oil, ginger, blackberry and ripe mango.

Over 33,000 lbs.of coffee were sold in 31 lots at the auction, and fetched from $1.50 to $14.20 a pound. The average price was $4.72, with 10 lots selling at over $6 a lb.

LONG BEACH, Calif. U.S.A. (May 30, 2006)--- Panama’s number one coffee, from Hacienda la Esmeralda, once again set an online coffee auction record when it sold for over $50 dollars a pound during an online auction on May 30th. Hacienda la Esmeralda placed first in the “Best of Panama” cupping competition in April with a score of 94.6 out of 100.

The coffee was purchased by Small Axe Coffee Alliance, which consists of Sweet Maria's Coffee Inc, Stumptown Coffee Roasters, Intelligentsia Coffee Roasters, Groundwork Coffee Company and Norwegian coffee roaster, Kaffa.

Competition was active on many of the lots offered during internet auction, which lasted 10 hours as several bidders were after the small lot of five 60-kilo bags of Hacienda la Esmeralda, as well Bambito Estates and Carmen Estates, which placed second and third in the competition, respectively, and also received high prices. When the auction closed, Hacienda la Esmeralda had sold for a stunning price of $50.25 a pound. Commercial-grade coffee is currently trading in commodity markets for just over $1 a pound.

Price Peterson of Hacienda la Esmeralda said, “It is events like this, and the great response of the buyers, that is like a cheering section for us farmers. It tells us that someone out there really appreciates the effort we put into preparing our coffee and, even if the commodity prices do not reflect it, someone up north cares. Everyone likes to feel that.”

The online auction was hosted by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA). Ted Lingle, SCAA’s executive director, said, “When you consider the average price paid for these 31 lots was $4.75, it is clear that Panama is producing high quality coffee and has captured the attention of roasters who are interested in only the best.”

In addition to Hacienda la Esmeralda, thirty additional lots totaling over 33,000 pounds of high scoring coffee from the “Best of Panama” were also sold in the online auction, fetching prices from $1.50 to $14.20 a pound.

The Toast of Roasts

Vancouver's priciest coffee

By Marke Andrews, Vancouver Sun

May 30, 2007 06:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

World’s Best Coffee Captures Record Price in Online Auction

Cafés panameños dominan competencias mundiales

Certified Sustainable Coffee Recognized for Outstanding Quality: Results from Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality Events Announced at SCAA Conference

May 7, 2007

Taste ten of the most expensive coffees in the world.

Taste ten of the most expensive coffees in the world.

Interest percolating for rare cup of joe