What is the most expensive coffee in the world? Understand the price – 06/15/2023 – Café na Prensa

The specialty coffee market has witnessed the development of increasingly exclusive – and expensive – beans since the early 2000s. Some are sold at prices that are hard to believe.

This Wednesday (14th), a coffee shop in São Paulo drew attention by selling a cup of filtered coffee for R$128. The beans were a Panamanian geisha purchased for US$600 (approximately R$3,000 at current exchange rates) for kilo.

The current record for the most expensive coffee in the world was set at an auction held in September 2022, when a lot of the geisha variety from the Panamanian producer Lamastus Family Estates was sold for an impressive US$ 6,034 (approximately R$ 30,000) per pound –or US$ 13,302 (about R$ 65 thousand) per kilo.

Who disbursed the trifle was a group of roasters from places like Taiwan, Dubai and China.

Earlier this year, coffee shop Proud Mary, with units in Australia and the United States, charged US$150 (more than R$700.00) for a cup of coffee – a geisha from Panama for which they had paid more of US$ 4 thousand (R$ 20 thousand) a kilo.

Geisha (or gesha) is a variety of Arabica coffee that emerged in the village of Geisha, in Ethiopia – it has, therefore, no relation to the geisha of Japanese culture.

It was in Panama, however, that this variety actually found fertile soil and achieved a quality recognized worldwide. It usually produces a very aromatic coffee, with floral notes and balanced acidity.

But taste is not the only reason behind these exorbitant prices. Barista James Hoffmann says in “The World Atlas of Coffee” that the real estate sector has driven up production costs in Panama.

“There is a great demand for land on the part of North Americans who want to buy a house in a stable, beautiful and relatively cheap country. Many farms that used to produce coffee have now been sold as residences for expatriates”, says the researcher.

In addition, says Hoffmann, Panama has more demanding labor legislation. Thus, with higher wages paid to farmers –on these farms, all harvesting is done manually–, the cost ends up being passed on to the consumer.

The very high values ​​that these coffees reached have generated discussions in the field. On the one hand, the importance of remunerating producers well for exceptional grains is recognized. On the other hand, the fact that it is an excluding product is criticized, since few people could pay such high prices for a cup.

Some specialists also criticize the exaggerated attention given to a single variety and say that it is necessary to analyze the whole context (handling, climate, processing) to understand the quality and price of a coffee.

Also, they say, there are varieties that produce more interesting and complex coffees than some of the very expensive geishas.

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