Seattle's Trabant Coffee is featuring one of the world's most revered and most expensive coffees, the Panama Esmeralda Especial.
(OPENPRESS) December 22, 2007 -- The Best of Panama 2007 Auction Lot #1 winner, Panama Esmeralda Especial, sold at auction earlier this year for $130 per pound, 100 times the Fair Trade Price and more than 11 times the price of the auction's next-highest-earning coffee bean. This year marks the third time in four years that the Esmeralda sold for a world record-setting price. So what's the big deal?
The Esmeralda Especial is a very sweet, delicate, almost tea-like coffee with notes reminiscent of apricot jam, jasmine, and orange blossom. Coffee gets its nuances in much the same way as wine- through factors like varietal and terroir- and Esmeralda is no exception. The Esmeralda Especial comes from the rare geisha varietal of the Coffee Arabica tree. This varietal was brought to Central America in the 1950s due to its disease-resistance, but was for the most part scrapped due to its low yield. In fact, up until a decade ago, Esmeralda was pretty much just using its Geisha stand as a windbreak.
Fast forward about fifty years, when the son of the grower discovered a distinct and pleasant taste from the Geisha's beans. He had some planted at a higher altitude - 5400 feet. It turns out that the soil and climatic conditions were perfect for the Geisha, and the stars aligned for a perfect cup. It won Best of Panama 2004 - an extremely competitive, blind taste test - and every Best of Panama competition since. It debuted at $21 a pound after winning the first auction, and has been bid higher each year.
Trabant is offering Panama Esmeralda by the 8 oz cup ($15) for a limited time. Each cup is ground and brewed fresh to order on the Clover coffee brewer, a machine that produces French Press quality coffee in a fraction of the time. Come see for yourself what makes this coffee one of the most highly regarded and expensive cups in the world.
