The Knife

At $45 a pound, coffee that's a ripoff

Intelligentsia and Groundwork: Two local
suppliers of the real, $99-a-half-pound thing

Remember the World's Most Expensive Coffee? And how there was an online supplier who seemed to offer it for a fraction of the price? How so, I wondered? And, voila! Answers.

Before I delve too deeply into the explanations, I should point out that Intelligentsia was only one of seven coffee suppliers who laid claim to the record-setting auction lot. (The others were the LA-based Groundwork, The Roasterie, Roastmasters.com, Zoka Coffee Roaster & Tea Co., 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters and Coffee Klatch Roasting.)

Another thing: There's nothing surprising that this batch was declared the winner in a national competition. As Geoff Watts of Intelligentsia puts it: "It always wins. It's like the Kenyan marathon runners."

However, that doesn't mean the end of bragging rights. Says Alex Russan of Groundwork: "We own two bags of the standard production lot, one 50lb bag of the auction lot AND the ONLY BAG IN THE WORLD of the peaberries from this farm -- this is very notable. Peaberries are cherries that developed only one instead of two beans inside and are thought to be more flavorful. Groundwork owns every peaberry of Finca Esmarelda's geisha coffee."

OK!

Now, on to why $198-per-pound coffee could be sold for $45. Bottom line: Caveat emptor.

This comes from Intelligentsia, which launched its sale of the $99 per half-pound coffee last week. Watts, Intelligentsia's director of coffee/green coffee purchaser writes:

Just to shed some light on the subject... the coffee being sold on the Geisha coffee website is not the same as the auction lot. It comes from the same farm -- Hacienda La Esmeralda -- but is a different coffee.

GeishaCoffee.com: A bargain on the world's most expensive coffee?

This morning, Intelligentsia sent out a press release/party invitation announcing the debut of Hacienda La Esmeralda's Geisha coffee, which Intelligentsia bought at auction for the record-setting price of $130/lb. If you like the samples they'll be brewing at Thursday night's party (which is open to the public), it can be yours for $99 per half pound.

Yikes, yowsa, et. al. But I wondered what others might charge.

So now I offer you this, with the caveat that it makes no sense to me: An online retail outlet for a Kentucky-born Panama coffee plantation owner, GeishaCoffee.com, offers Hacienda La Esmerelda at $33.95 for a 12-oz. whole-bean bag.

As they say in my country, Huh? The site says the coffee is the 2006/07 crop, which presumably is the same one sold at auction back in May. So how does a coffee that wholesales for $130 per pound become a retail product that sells  for about $45.25 per pound? And that doesn't even take the weight loss of roasting into consideration.

I have a call into GeishaCoffee.com in search of answers. In the meantime, here's a Forbes slide show of most-expensive coffees, produced back when the civet-poop coffee stil reigned supreme.

Intelligentsia Coffee: Starbucks can roast its beans in hell

This photograph was taken at Intelligentsia Coffee at 12:35 pm this afternoon -- little more than a half hour after the Chicago-based operation opened its Silver Lake store for the first time. The steamed-milk heart comes standard; so does, apparently, the adoration. The coffee? Terrific, and destined to become better; the company plans to open a Los Angeles roasting facility this fall.  Inside, customers were already buying Intelligentsia T-shirts; outside, a woman sat at one of the cafe tables and talked on her mobile: "It's a real coffee shop. You've got to see it." Get in line.

Intelligentsia, 3922 W. Sunset Blvd. (323) 663-6173