10 Most Expensive Coffees Sold Around the Globe
I’m willing to spend the $3 a day for my daily dose of caffeine, but there are definitely some days when I wonder whether or not it’s worth it. But for the real coffee lovers out there, coffee is a necessity and a good cup of coffee is worth scouring the globe for.
Some of these coffee-makers use among the most unique, albeit unorthodox and slightly disturbing, processes in the world to make their coffee beans packed with flavor, before they’re roasted and brought to a store near you. Actually, these aren’t the kind of coffees you can find in most stories. These are the rarest and most expensive coffees found and made all across the planet.
1. Starbucks Rwanda Blue Bourbon
These beans are sourced straight from the farms of Rwanda, an African district that is still well known for the massive genocide that occurred in the 1990’s. Rwandan farmers had historically used only low-grade beans and following the genocide, almost stopped farming coffee entirely.
However, in 2001 with the help of the U.S. Agency for International Development and a few other agricultural companies, the farmers were taught to cultivate premium Arabica coffee beans and provide the funding for the same. After a visit to the Rwandan farms in 2004, Starbucks began sourcing and selling Rwandan Blue Bourbon coffee for only $24 dollars a pound.
2. Hawaiian Kona Coffee
This is one of the most expensive coffees in the world. These coffee beans are cultivated in the North and South districts of Kona, in the Big Island of Hawaii. They are most predominantly cultivated in the slopes of the mountains of Mauna Loa and Hualalai.
There are very few Kona coffee farms scattered across the beautiful coasts of Kona, and these farms are managed by local families and farmers and have been for generations. It is usually derived from the Peaberry bean, known for its smooth and chocolaty flavor, which only accounts for about 5% of the crop yield, making this coffee quite rare. It is sold in selected locations for the sum of $34 a pound.
3. El Salvador Los Planes (Pacamara)
This delicious type of coffee bean is found solely in Citala, a city in the Central American country of El Salvador. This area is well known for farming the Pacamara variety of coffee, which is amongst the most popular types of coffee.
This coffee was awarded 2nd place in the 2006 El Salvador Cup of Excellence, held every year to appreciate the efforts taken to make exemplary coffee around the world. At $40 a pound, this is one of the best yet affordable coffees for the caffeine-lovers out there.
4. Fazenda Santa Ines Coffee
This delicious brew comes to you from Brazil, with a taste of caramel and berries, which is probably what makes it so popular. This coffee was awarded 1st place in Brazil’s 2005 Cup of Excellence.
It is fully bred, grown, cultivated and washed in Minas Geraiz, where it is still, even today, farmed using all-natural processes. For over a century, this coffee has been grown at the foothills of the Mantiquera Mountains. It is now sold for approximately $50 a pounds.
5. Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee
Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee is made from the roasted beans harvested straight from farms spread across the Jamaican mountains. In fact, the Blue Mountain coffee label is well known for sourcing the richest, most delicious and potent strains of coffee from all across the world and growing them in the prime weather and farming conditions of the Jamaican mountains.
The coffee is made from a variety of beans, like Peaberry beans, which gives each of them a different flavor. This coffee is available at prices between $50 and 80$ depending on the type, and farm from which it is sourced, and is also sold in bulk.
6. Saint Helena Coffee
This coffee takes you to the island of St. Helena, where Napoleon Bonaparte spent his years in exile. Its story begins a little less than a decade before his arrival, however, in 1733, where coffee seeds of Green Tipped Bourbon Coffee were brought to St. Helena from Mocha, in Yemen, and planted all across this island in the Atlantic.
It was only after receiving high praise from Napoleon that this coffee began to gain its popularity, starting in Paris. Unlike other types of coffee, which are grown in fertilizer, the farmers of this type of coffee use poultry manure as a base instead. This blend of coffee comes with a sweet caramel flavor, making it especially popular. It is sold at $79 for a pound.
7. Kopi Luwak
One of the world’s premier gourmet coffee’s, Kopi Luwak was, until recently, considered the most expensive coffee on the planet. Due to the, erm..unique method of processing the beans, it has an extremely different and flavorful taste and is a bonafide treat for all true coffee lovers in the world.
The cherries are first fed to civet cats (also known as palm civets) and digested by them. In the process of digestion, the cherries and their pulp are digested, but the beans are fermented by the animals' digestive fluids, giving the beans their unique flavor. The beans are then collected from the feces, and processed into a coffee powder that is sold at $160 a pound. Unorthodox, yes, but who can argue with results.
8. Hacienda La Esmerelda
The story of this coffee began in the South West mountains of Panama, in 1967, when the then president of the Bank of America, Rudolph A Peterson, bought the Hacienda La Esmerelda farm. In 1973, his son and his family took over the farm and over the next two decades planted coffee seeds all across the farm and opened up a coffee processing plant.
This family-run business now has 3 more farms, one of which is the producer of the infamous Geisha coffee strain. This coffee won numerous awards, starting with its victory in the Best of Panama 2004, during which it was sold for $21 a pound and auctioned for a total of nearly $20,000. It now sells for $350 a pound.
9. Finca El Injerto Coffee
For over a century now, the Finca El Injerto farm has been sharing with the world its absolutely incredible coffee. It is grown in a plantation in La Libertad, Huehuetenango, in the Central American country Guatemala. The plantation is surrounded by tropical forests making the weather conditions ideal for growing coffee and many crops.
Add to their high-quality beans an extremely efficient production process and eco-friendly practices, and you get one of the finest coffees in the world. This coffee has won the Guatemala Cup of Excellence 7 years running now, and has been sold for as much as $500 for a pound.
10. Black Ivory Coffee
Let me introduce you to the rarest coffee in the world. It is exported from a farm in Thailand, and sold mostly to five-star hotels, though they do offer some for sale independently. Much like Kopi Luwak, it is produced using an unorthodox method.
The cherries are fed to elephants, where the stomach acid of the mammoth mammals breaks them down. This process actually helps to enhance the flavor of the bean and even gets rid of that bitter taste. However, this process also leaves only a few beans intact, which is what makes it such a rare coffee.
This coffee is sold at approximately $550 a pound ($1100 per kg), with a cup of this beauty costing up to 50$ at select five-star hotels.