In a year that has held a lot of shocks and surprises for the coffee world when it comes to the price of coffee, this is perhaps the most jaw-dropping.
At the Best of Panama Auction held a couple days ago, a rare lot, a washed Geisha varietal from the famed Hacienda La Esmeralda estate, went for a record-breaking $604,080, marking the highest price ever paid for auction coffee in the world. Weighing approximately 20 kilograms, this tiny lot fetched $30,204 per kilogram, smashing previous records. Wow!!! Congratulations to this family run estate (The Peterson's), they really are lovely humans.
Panama has always done things a little differently to the rest of the coffee world creating their own awards system Best of Panama in 2004 which has firmly placed itself at the centre of luxury coffee world. This year’s Best of Panama Auction, commenced in the early hours of the morning and was hosted by luxury coffee auction house, M-Cultivo. The record-breaking lot earned 98.00 points, the highest score ever recorded at the Best of Panama (BoP) competition. Judged by 22 international cupping experts at the Boquete Coffee Festival in June, the winning Geisha stunned with its clarity, complexity, and almost otherworldly flavour profile.
I guess the most obvious question here is are the people bidding at these high numbers absolutely nuts? And I think the clear answer is, yes. Yes, they're out of their minds! We are all for raising the general price of coffee across the board, but this is insane. Coffee reserved for billionaires! How much will a cup of this coffee cost?! And worse, what if they mess up during brewing it?!!! We will always be talking about value of coffee. Does this help or hinder the value of coffee? We are left asking many questions!
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