The Exotic Coffee Market

I can remember when I first came to Panama and here up in the highlands of Boquete where I first tasted an exotic coffee variety called geisha.  WOW, that taste cannot be replicated and is as different as drinking tea, in fact it has a lightness of tea but an aroma that will never leave you.  Since then I have tasted dozens of varieties and regularly roast my own beans fresh once a week.   The morning is not complete without a cup of fresh ground fresh roasted Boquete coffee out on the terrace in the chill of the morning.  New record prices are reached each year and here in Boquete, Hacienda Esmeralda sold a lot for over $170 per pound.  Boquete is to coffee as Napa is to wine and we will continue to see people drawn here for a healthy way of life and an excellent cup of Joe.

There are three farms in Central America who auction online varieties of coffee such as geisha, mocha and yellow catuai, in small batches of about 300 pounds.

Two of the farms are in Guatemala and one in Panama. They use this system of auction specialty coffee production, taking advantage of the emergence of “micro-roasters”, who buy in small batches, of no more than 10 bags, coffee that is “different, exceptional”, after searching through the Internet, and who pay prices above normal international prices.

An article in Prensalibre.com reports that “individual auctions allow the sale of small batches of coffee at better prices than in the traditional market. In a sale in 2011, the farm El Injerto de Huehuetenango, sold 125 quintals and in 2012, 160. The maximum value achieved by a pound of coffee in a single auction was $500”.  That would cost you $40 for a small cup of Joe in the coffee shop back in the US, Europe or Asia where most of the buyers are no coming from!!

In May of this year, prices in Panama’s Coffee Auction were also strong for the other lots as well.  The best bid was that of a Japanese company who paid $93.25 a pound for geisha Kotowa Don K coffee.  Kotowa Don K Coffee ranks among the types of naturally processed Geisha.  Some of that coffee obtained the price of $93.25 per pound and was acquired by Horiguchi Coffee and Saza Coffee in Japan, after more than three hours of bidding.

Hacienda La Esmeralda publishes the result of each auction so that they remain transparent to customers and each year the process gets more action and the pace is faster as knowledgeable bidders step up quickly for the best lots.  Here is this years results.