$75 a Cuppa: Tasting a World’s Most Expensive Coffee in San Francisco

Just when we suspicion coffee was apropos ridiculously expensive, someone had to go and take it to a whole new turn — and of course, it’s function in San Francisco.

A dilemma coffee emporium is offered a many outlandish decoction for a record-breaking $75 a crater — with a individually-sealed packets of beans proclaiming a Elida Geisha 803 to be a “Most Expensive Coffee in a World.”

This isn’t some new section in a Bay Area’s scandalous affordability predicament — well, not exactly. For a caffeinated connoisseurs during Klatch Coffee, it’s dictated to be partial of a new section in how Americans suffer their favorite morning drink.

“Most Americans are still celebration what we call coffee-flavored milk,” explained Bo Thiara, owners of a Klatch Coffee authorization in a Bay Area. “People put cream and sugarine in it. And we consider we’re prepared to knowledge coffee by itself.”

Thiara pronounced coffee but a equipment has already gained recognition in Europe and Asia. But Americans have been slower to skip a seasoning bar — in part, since of a canned, pre-ground coffee many grew adult with.

“It had a sour taste, it had a over-roasted taste,” he said. “You had to put cream in there to cut that.”

Today’s coffee, he said, is distant milder on a palate, in partial since roasting and brewing have advanced, and in partial since improved beans are creation their approach into a United States from countries like Panama — widely regarded as a best place to grow coffee.

“The beauty of Panama is that you’ve got dual climates that are entrance together,” Thiara said. “You’ve got a really comfortable Caribbean meridian that collides with this cooler Pacific meridian — and that might change via a year.”

Much like booze grapes grown in Napa and Sonoma Counties, Thiara pronounced a season of coffee advantages from bearing to these sundry conditions. Coffee also advantages from being grown during high elevations, he pronounced — in this case, about a mile above sea level.

The “803” coffee, that won a top measure ever awarded in a Best of Panama foe (The “Oscars for coffee,” Thiara says) is grown on a bank between 1,600 and 1,800 meters in betterment — so there’s not most genuine estate to grow on, and not most coffee to harvest. Of a 100 pounds produced, Klatch Coffee got a usually 10 pounds sole in North America, for a whopping $803 per pound.

After roasting, a coffee is brewed for a accurate time, during a accurate temperature, and served all by itself in a ceramic mug. Customers are told to take their time enjoying it: a flavors change as a coffee cools. There will be blueberries during first, afterwards after strawberries, and maybe apples and walnuts, Thiara said.

Much like a excellent wine, tasting a “803” is an experience, Thiara said, and not something Klatch Coffee intends to sell as an every-morning form of affair. The association sells some-more affordable coffees, starting during $3 per cup, including less-expensive beans from Panama that can also be consumed but cream or sugar.

“Our design is to solemnly sight people to splash coffee a approach it should be drunk,” Thiara said. “Just like this — and suffer a layers and a hardness and a depth.”

Get a latest from NBC Bay Area anywhere, anytime


  • Download a App

    Available for IOS and Android