The cost of a cup of coffee seems to keep rising, and yet people don’t stop drinking it. But a rare specialty coffee debuting in New Zealand today breaks all the price barriers – selling at a whopping $13 a cup.

The Esmeralda Special Geisha coffee is brewed with absolute precision. It has to [...]]]> By Kim Choe

The cost of a cup of coffee seems to keep rising, and yet people don’t stop drinking it. But a rare specialty coffee debuting in New Zealand today breaks all the price barriers – selling at a whopping $13 a cup.

The Esmeralda Special Geisha coffee is brewed with absolute precision. It has to be – it is worth $200 a kilo – more than four times the cost of a normal cafe blend.

“It does taste exquisite. It’s clean, it’s sweet, it’s got an amazing fruit – melon, strawberry – vibrancy,” says coffee specialist Hannah Hoffman.

The Supreme Coffee Company has imported the bean from a farm in the mountain regions of western Panama.

Read the complete article and watch the video here

En segundo lugar, quedó Panacofee State y en la tercera el Geisha, de la finca La Carleida.

Ricardo Koiner, presidente de la Asociación de Café Especial de [...]]]> Marcelino Rosario

El Imponente Geisha, de la hacienda La Esmeralda, propiedad de la familia Peterson, obtuvo el primer lugar de la catación internacional Lo Mejor de Panamá.

En segundo lugar, quedó Panacofee State y en la tercera el Geisha, de la finca La Carleida.

Ricardo Koiner, presidente de la Asociación de Café Especial de Panamá, abrió el sobre sellado por los auditores que recibieron la información proveniente de los 15 jueces que, a nivel mundial, probaron la alta calidad del café de Panamá.

“It’s a powerhouse aromatic coffee that jumps out [...]]]> “The Geisha from Hacienda Esmeralda isn’t a gimmick, the latest Kona or Kopi Luwak. Instead, it’s more like the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti of coffee, a superior product that blows the collective mind of the experts who trek to Panama each year to taste the new harvest.

“It’s a powerhouse aromatic coffee that jumps out of the cup with candy apricot notes even before you have the first sip,” said George Howell, one of a handful of roasters to get his hands on any.

Read the entire article HERE

15 catadores internacionales juzgaron el evento

CHIRIQUÍ. El inconfundible sabor y aroma del café Geisha logró conquistar los gustos más exigentes en la versión XIII de catación “Best Of Panamá 2009”.

La muestra presentada por la Hacienda La Esmeralda, propiedad de la familia Peterson, obtuvo el primer lugar, consolidando de esta [...]]]> POR: RAÚL LÓPEZ
periodistas@laestrella.com.pa

15 catadores internacionales juzgaron el evento

CHIRIQUÍ. El inconfundible sabor y aroma del café Geisha logró conquistar los gustos más exigentes en la versión XIII de catación “Best Of Panamá 2009”.

La muestra presentada por la Hacienda La Esmeralda, propiedad de la familia Peterson, obtuvo el primer lugar, consolidando de esta manera su liderazgo en la producción de dicha variedad.

El segundo lugar fue para la Finca Carleida, propiedad de Carlos Santiago, quien también presentó un café Geisha, mientras que el tercer lugar fue para la variedad Pacamara, producido en la finca Gea Burnesky, de Gonzalo Rojas, quien explicó que esta variedad fue traída de El Salvador.

Una mezcla de Caturra y Typica, proveniente de la Finca Paso Ancho, propiedad de la familia Aguilera Franceshi, obtuvo la cuarta posición, mientras que el quinto lugar fue para Lamastus Family Estates, que presentó una muestra de Catuai.

Café Ole S.A., de Ramón García de Paredes, también presentó un Geisha, que se ubicó en la sexta posición.

El séptimo lugar fue para la muestra de Caturra, presentada por Ricardo Koyner. Cabe destacar que con esta misma variedad, la finca Lerida Estate Coffe anda Tourist, obtuvo el octavo lugar.

Efraín y Benjamín Osorio, quienes participaron por segunda vez en este evento, se quedaron con la novena posición. En esta oportunidad presentaron un café Catuai.

Lucrecia de Alvarado, de Callejón Estate, con una muestra compuesta por un 85% de Typica y 15% de Caturra, ocupó la décima posición. Este año participaron 26 muestras de café, las cuales fueron evaluadas por jueces internacionales, provenientes de Estados Unidos, Noruega y Costa Rica. Las mismas procedían de fincas cafetaleras de Volcán, Piedra de Candela y Boquete.

The top [...]]]> Farms in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Indonesia and Panama have earned top scores from a panel of coffee experts at the 2009 Rainforest Alliance Cupping. Representatives from the Rainforest Alliance announced the results of the cupping on Friday at the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) conference in Atlanta.

The top ranking farms were among 80 Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms in 11 countries that participated in the organization’s cupping events in Long Beach, California and New York City last month. Coffee from 94 percent of the participating farms received scores of 80 or above, the threshold score to receive specialty coffee status – demonstrating that sustainable farming practices often contribute to the production of high-quality coffee.

“Rainforest Alliance Certified farms implement better farm practices that result in environmental, social and economic benefits, and those methods tend to result in better conditions for growing coffee,” said Sabrina Vigilante, director of markets at the Rainforest Alliance.

Compared to previous years, the coffees this year had fewer defects, such as broken pieces, malformed beans or insect damage, due to guidance at the coffee’s origin. The Rainforest Alliance works with farmers to help them document the quality of their coffees, determine defects and make improvements.

To further strengthen the link between sustainability and quality, the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) has partnered with the Rainforest Alliance to connect the Q Coffee System, which certifies high-quality specialty coffees, with the network of Rainforest Alliance Certified™ coffee farms. Once coffees have been graded and certified as “Q,” the Q Certificate can be linked directly to the Rainforest Alliance online Marketplace, where users can trace coffee through the supply chain, from exporter to importer to roaster. Now, in addition to knowing that their coffee was grown in a way that conserves the environment and improves livelihoods, buyers of Rainforest Alliance Certified coffees can identify the coffee quality and profile they seek.

The 10 top scoring farms were from eight different origins and received scores of 84 or above:

Hacienda La Esmeralda (Panama) 88.99
Santa Elisa Pachup (Guatemala) 85.74
La Pampa (Guatemala) 84.96
Finca Santa Anita (Costa Rica) 84.92
Grupo Asociativo San Isidro (Colombia) 84.58
Sumatra Mandheling Rainforest (Indonesia) 84.56
Capoeirinha – Ipanema Coffees (Brazil) 84.44
Fazenda Lambari (Brazil) 84.31
Gemadro Coffee Plantation (Ethiopia) 84.18
Monte Siona (El Salvador) 84.17

Twenty experienced, volunteer cuppers — representing coffee roasters, retailers and trading companies — evaluated the coffees based on: fragrance/aroma, uniformity, sweetness, clean cup, acidity, defects, flavor, body, balance and after-taste.

“Central America, in general, had a tough time with regard to quality this year due to weather,” said Shawn Hamilton, lead cupper and vice president of plant operations and coffee buyer for Java City. “But this really proves the point that if you farm properly using programs like the Rainforest Alliance, you can minimize some of those effects and maintain quality.”

The Rainforest Alliance Certified™ seal is awarded to farms that have met the environmental, social and economic standards of the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN), a coalition of local conservation organizations that first set the standard for sustainable farming in rainforest areas in the early 1990s. The SAN standards cover ecosystem conservation, worker rights and safety, wildlife protection, water and soil conservation, agrochemical reduction and education for farm children.

The average scores from farms in participating countries and the three highest scoring farms in each country were:

Guatemala (with six farms participating) 83.83
Top 3 scores: Santa Elisa Pachup (85.74), La Pampa (84.96), San Diego Buena Vista (83.75)

El Salvador (with six farms participating) 83.30
Monte Siona (84.17), Las Mercedes (84.13), San Jose (83.39)

Costa Rica (with 10 farms participating) 82.58
Finca Santa Anita (84.92), Rincón Socola (83.56), Espíritu Santo Estate Coffee (83.18)

Brazil (with 10 farms participating) 82.42
Capoeirinha – Ipanema Coffees (84.44), Fazenda Lambari (84.31), Pinheiros – Sete Cachoeiras State Coffee (83.33)

Colombia (with 24 farms participating) 82.30
Grupo Asociativo San Isidro (84.58), Grupo Aguadas (83.94), Grupo Anserma (83.90)

Nicaragua (with six farms participating) 82.13
Selva Negra (83.49), Los Placeres (82.97), Finca Orgánica y Reserva El Jaguar (82.13)

Honduras (with 7 farms participating) 80.57
El Derrumbo (81.65), La Guama (80.96), El Cascajal (80.83)

Mexico (with eight farms participating) 80.25
Finca Arroyo Negro (82.87), Finca Kassandra (82.64), Oaxacafé (82.61)

Panama, Indonesia & Ethiopia each had only one farm participating.

Editors’ note: The Rainforest Alliance CertifiedTM seal should not be confused with any other certification mark or product label. Care should be taken when referring to labels generically, as terms such as ethical, fair, or sustainable have specific meanings within the scope of each label’s approach to improving the social and environmental impact of business and commerce.

The Rainforest Alliance works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior. For more information, visit www.rainforest-alliance.org.

REUTERS 10:49 a.m.

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 [...]]]> By Brian Harris

REUTERS 10:49 a.m.

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.

Buyers are both excited and wary of the experiment.

“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.

 FARM EXPANSION

“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.

(Editing by Jim Marshall)

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 [...]]]> by Bryn Nelson Sep 13 2007

How an orange-scented coffee bean from northern Panama became one of the most coveted in the world.

Photograph by: Jeff Taylor/Polaris Images

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.

“I wouldn’t do that,” said Joaquin Quian, manager of the bustling West Hastings Steet coffee bistro Caff Artigiano, which begins selling [...]]]>

By Marke Andrews, Vancouver Sun

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.

And how is the coffee?

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.

I’ll just need to take out a second mortgage.
mandrews@png.canwest.com

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 [...]]]> Posted by Monica Eng at 3:00 p.m. CDT

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.