I'm Kinda Freakin Out - Most Expensive Coffee in the World (Sailing Curiosity, Boquete Panama)

I'm going to try to put this into perspective. A single cup of high quality geisha coffee costs more than a night at our little cabin here in Boquete. We've only had geisha once in our lives and that was just a sip out of someone else's cup. And now here we are on our way to see where it's grown. This is it. Okay, I think maybe we park up here somewhere. Yeah. How about that? Okay. We're here because Ben at Crema Coffee got us connected with this farm and it's called Elita Estate. There he is. Buenos dias. Hello. Well, this is what we do. We do coffee. I'm going to smell this cup, Felipe is going to smell, and you guys behind us smell this one. Okay, this is one of another and whatever you feel you smell like, whatever, you just put it in your mouth. Okay. Okay. And just so you know, this is Wilford. We're just diving right in. So I'll give you the scoop later. Okay, this is turning out to be way more than we expected. So here's the scoop. Wilford's family has been running this farm for almost 100 years. It's unique because more than half of the farm is within the Volcan Baru National Park and it's one of the highest coffee farms in Panama. We were stoked to simply meet a coffee farmer, learn a little bit, and have a chance to taste some ridiculously high-end coffee. This is a geisha tree. This is geisha. This is a geisha. But it looks like Wilford is giving us the full tour. From tree to cup. We're going to go visit the geisha trees and some of the other trees and go up into the national park and hopefully fly the drone before it rains. That's the plan in the shortest time possible I can tell you. This is the tipica. So he was saying that the branches come out kind of evenly like this which is how you can decipher it from the geisha. Which go more up. Right? Yes, which I think we'll see in a minute. Jason. Si. You're walking through a coffee plantation. I know. Is anyone breathing kind of hard? The backpack carrier is breathing hard. I haven't seen this much elevation in a long time. Yeah, Alaska. Oh, California. That's nice, right? Yeah. All kinds of new things. It's nice. It's floral, but sweet. Kind of like a jasmine. It all starts with these lovely flowers that get pollinated by bees and form berries. Once the berries are ripe, they're hand-picked. Which has got to be a tough job. They actually hand harvest all of this. But can you imagine? And that's how steep it is. These coffee trees are planted in rich volcanic soil at all different elevations. The misty clouds roll in daily and the nights here are chilly. It's this environment that makes the coffee grown here different from other farms. But that's the beauty of mother nature. Each little micro area will reveal different flavors in the final beef. Oh, it's so different. A little sweeter? I want to take these home and roast them. Such a unique flavor though. It's not exactly like honey. And it's kind of like a fruit, but not. We still have more to see. This is kind of a big deal. I was going to film her, but she wouldn't allow it. This is your deal. My deal. This is your deal. You're just along for the ride? No, I enjoy it. But you enjoy it to like a whole new level. By the way, we are at 5,263 steps. Wow. Just like that, a whole new planet. And the smell. Totally different environment. Drastically different. This is like 10 steps from when I stopped recording last. It's amazing. I'm not kidding. Maybe 20 feet. Yeah. Bamboo. Look at that. Whoa. Isn't that beautiful? That looks like a rainforest, people. Oh, starting to rain. He said it rains every afternoon. Not kidding. It's like clockwork, man. Now this is where things start to get technical, because there are three different methods of processing to choose from. Natural process. Natural, which is the whole fruit. This is honey. Honey, where the skin is removed, but the pulp stays. This is a washed coffee. And washed, where all the fruit is removed. And then there are three different drying methods. Mechanical, patio, and raised beds. Look at all those geisha beans. All my coffee enthusiasts rejoice. No matter which methods are used, the next step is milling. What the machine will do, this is the cascara, and then this is the bean. This is what is shipped out for them to roast, okay, from the natural process. Green coffee is one step before roasting, okay? What I did with my foot, this machine will do it with friction. Then we'll run the coffee through here. We'll separate the broken beans and small beans. Like this one, look. Like this one. See the broken beans? This machine will get rid of these broken beans, and of large ones like this one. Because they won't roast right. Yeah, they won't roast right, exactly. So then this vibrates and throws air through here. So the denser beans stay here, and you get the denser beans, which are the good beans here, and the lighter beans, which are not as good quality, will go here. So what we do, what do we do with the first quality beans? We bring them here for final hand selection. Vacuum pack. Geisha natural. This coffee sells for $60 a pound green. Yep. You heard him right. $60 per pound. And that's just the standard geisha price. The super special beans that are sent to auction can go for hundreds of dollars per pound. Okay, we'll do a cup and table here, and we'll talk. This is very, very, very formal for us. Okay, this is quality coffee that we're gonna ship out. Like to Crema, we ship a geisha, katuai, wash, natural. That one smelled like blueberries. Wine has 400 components, chemical component. Coffee has between 800 and 1,000 components. That's why coffee has become so famous. We've never cupped before, and apparently it's serious business. Wilfred needs to make sure the coffee he's sending to the roasters around the world is top quality. And cupping is how coffee is judged and graded. It's all blind tastings and a complex world of its own. So every single shipment that we ship out of here, we cup it several times, many, many times. So I am making note, okay, of what I smell, and I'm scoring the coffee, see? Look at how the fragrance, when it's the ground, aroma, when it's the water, and then you have flavor, aftertaste, acidity, body, balance, uniformity, sweetness, defects, and then overall. All this, you score it, okay? And I go around the table seven times. You want to get air and coffee at the same time like this. Okay? Because it's not that easy, but you do it like this. A lot of people drink it. Okay, like my son, I don't. You're going to spit? I'm not spitting. I'm drinking this. Kind of freaking out here. Justin, that was a good one. I feel like the bigger noise you make, the better you are at it. The more you're aerating it, right? Yeah, the more, but that's not, okay, you can, you don't have to, you know, because I'm going to pass out from breathing into my chair. Are these all the same bean that's roasted differently, or are these all different beans? Some of them are natural, some are washed, and then I know that there is a geisha there because I can tell. Yeah. I don't know where they are because they are the ones who put it on the table. Exactly. You're not supposed to know, right? Yeah, I'm not supposed to know. This one here is a geisha. That's my other favorite. This is a geisha. All right, seven and two. Yeah, it has such a unique flavor. It's different, right? Although eight tastes different than anything else. Yeah, eight does too. Eight is also a good coffee. One of my favorites. Of course, a geisha is horrible. My taste buds are overwhelmed. Like there's a lot going on here with all these different coffees. I don't know how he keeps it straight. I mean, I guess professional, right? But it's uh, they're all so different. Kind of freaking happy. All right, Mr. Cochner, how are you doing here? Trying to contain myself. All right. I did my freak out and now I'm back to normal. For the body, now I go backwards, okay? What's your favorite so far? Of course, this one. This one is also okay, but it's a different process. People say, oh, I like french roast. I like dark roast. But that's really, you're destroying the coffee. You're destroying the coffee. You will only taste the rose, you know? The like the carbons in the coffee, okay? But so coffee, specialty coffee has to be roasted light. Always, always. Otherwise, you will not appreciate the flavor. Okay? You don't put sugar in your coffee? You don't put sugar in your coffee. Unless it's a really good coffee, you don't need to. No, unless it's a bad coffee, you have to put sugar in cream. You know? And change the flavor. We put a high value on authentic experiences. And as far as coffee goes, this is the pinnacle. Tasting the world's most prized coffee with the farmer himself. This is crazy. I've never had this. No. This is amazing. Yeah. Now, let me call these guys so we can discuss the coffees real quick. Number two. Okay, what coffee is this? This is a Elida Tipica Natural. Tipica is a variety. Catua is a variety. Geisha is a variety, like Pinot Noir, like Sabernet Cobillon, like Shiraz. So Tipica is a variety. Kind of the heirloom variety. The one that my grandparents planted here. And the process is natural. Natural process, which was dried in the shell. This one is a good coffee. We all really like it. And we are processing for Taiwan some Tipicas. And this one fits the requirement of our buyers. The buyers buy here. 90% of our buyers, they come here and cop here. Okay, and they do what we just did. After geeking out for an entire day over coffee, you might think we'd be overwhelmed. But Wilford has connected us with some friends of his, and we can't say no. This is Graciano, and his farm is Los Lejones. Once before. Okay. Yeah. So the smelling is just, oh, you cannot touch it. You know, if you have perfume or something, normally you don't touch the cup. You just take a deep smell, and just think whatever you taste will smell like. Okay. And that's it. Wow, they all smell really good. You feel a lot of fruit, maybe some spicy sometimes. They almost smell like liquor. Yeah. Yeah, some of them, they're really whiny or licorice. The interesting thing about his farm is he only uses the natural and honey processes, because he uses zero water. That's a honey process. We only pulp, right? Without any water. This gets like honey caramelized. Yeah, that's like, we call it black honey. The slurp is more intensified in this room. It's been cool to meet a guy that produces some really good geisha and cares about doing it responsibly. I have to ask myself for translation. We had planned to visit Graciano's farm, but the non-stop rain made the roads impassable with our little rental car. It's so pretty. Your destination is on the left. We have one last special treat, thanks to Wilford. We are at Hacienda Las Mereldas. If you google geisha at all, you'll find out all about them. They're the ones that brought this coffee. They didn't bring it specifically to this region, but they're the ones that basically made it famous. They've won a ton of awards. I'm very excited. Coffee nerd. And our new coffee nerds, are you excited? Yes. All right, she'll be down in a minute. I think that's what she said. We're still working on the Spanish thing. Yeah, we can look at the grounds. So this is it. This is where the most expensive coffee in the world comes from. It's kind of wild walking around the empty patio and the machinery with Rachel. She paints these scenes of what goes on during harvest. Panama has been growing coffee for a long time, but it wasn't until 2004 that the geisha craze hit. That was the year Las Mereldas debuted their geisha and set the record for the highest price ever paid for a coffee at auction, which was $21 a pound. So we have 10 that we're blind testing, right? Yes. Nine geishas in one plateau. Fast forward to 2017 and their geisha is still breaking records, but this time it's a whopping $601 per pound. It's amazing what people are willing to pay for a unique cup of coffee. How did we even get this coffee? I didn't even know we were going to be cupping that. So this is the second level, the green label, but a natural process. And this is the plateau. Okay, so we got that right. Yes, that was correct. So we can definitely tell the difference between a coffee wee and a geisha. Our palates are evolving. Number seven was one of my personal favorites from the cupping. And it was? Peaberry. A peaberry. But there's a geisha peaberry. Kate, a geisha peaberry. I also liked number three. Green label, private collection lost. So that's the one we have about a hundred boxes down there that I sold you. Oh, you want to buy some coffee, Nikki? And this is our experiment three. This one had, uh, this is the only one of the experiments that had yeast in it. So it's anaerobic fermentation with yeast. That would be why I liked that one. Because it has beer yeast? So Nikki's first favorite was number three. We sell that usually at $25 a pound. Okay, so it's not like outrageous. It's not at, well, it depends on what I think. By the time it gets to the roaster and then gets to you. It's a very solid geisha. Yeah. But it's not a micro lot because it's got a blend. Because it's blended. And then the other one that I liked was the fermented. Oh, the fermented one. The yeast one. That one's so unique. Okay, so that one, that's a $50 pound one. But it had some counterparts that were $75 a pound. So the one and the four was better. The one and the four. So this was number three. The one and the four were more expensive. And then the peaberry, the geisha peaberry. The geisha peaberry is also $75 a pound. And then of course this was my favorite. The Mario. So let me think. That never went to auction. Our regular price for non-auction or outside of auction, natural processed geisha is $60 a pound. But if that had gone to auction, it would have been over $100 a pound. We just didn't have enough of it to put it in. But it's being used for competitions all over the place. So I have the most expensive taste. So I should drink the rest of this. Although it probably tastes totally different now, right? Do you guys have a grinder? Yeah, you can take these. Oh, did you hear that? Okay, let's leave before she changes her mind. Which coffee on the table is your favorite? The number 10 was the favorite and I had my favorite of the washed was also the peaberrys. The peaberrys? Yeah. So yours was number 10 and the number 7, the one that you liked. Yeah, my favorite on this table. It's all this coffee left to drink. Are you wanting to slurp every single cup? Yes. Just be shaking in the back seat of the car. It's wasteful if we leave it. So it's time to go. We say, let's go and Justin says... One second. He's got to slurp as much coffee as he can before we go. And one more, number 5. Yeah. He's never going to be the same after this deal. Still good cold. Okay, I'm ready. Are you sure? If I have to be. To be completely honest, it hasn't all set in yet. If any of us were fully aware of just how special this experience is, there's no way we'd be playing it so cool. All right, you guys ready for the next adventure? Yes. I have good news and bad news. So I have good news and bad news. She's going to get me a list of places you can find this coffee. And actually, Graciano will get a list from him and Wilford as well of where you can find these coffees. But we have learned that it's all about where they're grown, the type of roast, just the education. We'll put together some sort of something that makes sense in the post. So click over to our site to find more. Yes, because it's been information overload. I think this is the end of this video. I think so. Oh, man. So thanks for watching. Yeah. Subscribe. Give us a thumbs up. Thumbs up. That's good. Yeah, we've got some coffee to drink. Yeah. All right, guys, one last statement, which was, and it has to be different answers. What was one thing you learned about coffee from all of this? Justin, we'll start with you. Definitely altitude. Higher it is, the better it is. Okay. I think it's neat that it just grows like all over the mountains. So I really, really like mountains and different terrains. So it's neat to see how it just grows everywhere in the mountain areas. Peaberry is a fancier bean than I thought. I thought it was just kind of a standard bean. But every time we got it at a coffee shop, it just, I loved it. And, you know, now I know I really love Geisha too, which is a problem. Yes. And you? I guess for me, I always knew that growing coffee was like a hands-on process. But even it's even after the bean has been picked, the picking and taking the cherry part off and the mucilage and even natural process. I guess it's very hands-on. There's a lot of work that goes into making a cup of coffee. And I really have a greater appreciation for that now. So that's me. Bye! It's the longest ending screen ever. Ever!