Which are the most expensive coffees in the whole world?

Coffee is a pleasure that in recent years has earned the place it deserves in its gastronomic setting. Nowadays, there are fine coffees that are even more expensive than rare wines!

For many years, coffee has been (and certainly is, still) a daily beverage, whose quality and flavor varieties were only appreciated within certain countries with a rich and established coffee culture, such as Italy. Nowadays, consumers all over the world are more informed, more demanding and knows how to appreciate the quality of coffee, but also distinguishes the delicate differences in flavor and aroma of each variety and blend.

Like other gastronomic products such as wine or whiskey, there are varieties of coffee that gather the admiration and appreciation of coffee lovers around the world, resulting in extremely high prices. The coffees we present below, which are among the most expensive and rare in the world, stand out not only because of their quality and taste, but also because of their high demand, the often difficult and painful conditions of cultivation but also their limited production.

Which are the most expensive coffees in the whole world?

Black Ivory Coffee, Thailand

Contrary to what you would expect, the world's most expensive and richest coffee is produced in Asia in a process that is anything but appealing. An Arabica producer from northern Thailand combined the production of coffee with the likes of Asian elephants, still used in the country's agriculture. His idea was simple and arose from the observation of the elephants around his plantation: elephants are fed, among other things, with ripe coffee beans and then specialized workers undertake to harvest the beans from the elephant faeces. The flavor profile of the coffee beans is greatly enriched by the pathway in the elephant's digestive system, while some proteins responsible for the bitterness of coffee are broken down by the gastric fluid of the animal, resulting in a particular flavor and unique aroma. The production of Black Ivory Coffee is extremely limited, the work required is tough, laborious and specialized and its reputation is great: all this helps to make Black Ivory the world's most expensive coffee at a price of $ 1,500 per  kilo .

Hacienda La Esmeralda, Panama

Coffee from La Esmeralda Estate in Panama is probably one of the most characteristic coffees of the "new era" in coffee, which seems to appreciate especially coffees of a specific geographical origin with strong and clear organoleptic characteristics. Although Panama, although it has always been among the coffee-producing countries, has never claimed quality laurels for its coffee, it all changed in the early 2000s with the introduction of the Gesha variety of an Arabica variety from the homonymous region of Ethiopia. Hacienda La Esmeralda's coffee has won the world's gourmets and its limited production has climbed rapidly to record-breaking prices at the relevant auctions.

Kopi Luwak, Indonesia

Being the world's most expensive and most special coffee for years, Kopi Luwak was probably the inspiration for Black Ivory coffee. The process followed is the same, but instead of elephants, coffee cherries are devoured by civets, small carnivores that look like wild cats. Although Kopi Luwak originally consisted of beans that collected from the excrements of wild civets, in recent years an industry has been developed that keeps the animals in the cages by feeding coffee beans with violence. This, on the one hand, casts the quality of coffee, and on the other hand raises important questions about the moral treatment of animals, events that have given Kopi Luwak a bad name, even though its price remains high.

Santa Helena Coffee, British Empire 

The island of Santa Helena, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, is best known to most of us because it was a place of exile and imprisonment for Napoleon Bonaparte, but the introduction of coffee trees created a coffee whose taste features do not resemble anyone else, mainly due to climatic conditions prevailing on the island, which are very different from the rest of the world's coffee producing countries. Santa Helena's coffee is available as single origin coffee, but its flavor also enriches several premium blends, such as the blend of Sant Eustachio Il Café.

Blue Mountain Coffee, Τζαμάικα

It is probably the most famous gourmet coffee and the "holy grail" of coffee lovers all over the world. Blue Mountain is grown in Jamaica, in the Blue Mountains near Kingston, but only coffee that grows above a certain altitude can get the coveted certification from its Jamaica-based organization. Its unique flavor, its natural sweetness, the absence of bitterness, the difficult and laborious cultivation, the limited production and the fact that 90% of the production is directly available in Japan keep the price of Jamaica Blue Mountain steadily high. More ground-breaking choices are blends that include legendary coffee such as Passalacqua Harem and New York Extra.

Can some culinary delights be really distant, such as Black Ivory Coffee, and other more affordable ones, such as Jamaica Blue Mountain ... but all contribute to making coffee the magic that surrounds it!