10 Of The World’s Most Expensive Coffees
and 3 Incredible Value Alternatives
There’s so much choice when it comes to coffee, from budget-friendly beans to the most sought-after, high-priced varieties. While higher costs don’t always mean higher quality, here you can discover some of the most expensive varieties of coffee on the planet.
There are a range of factors that contribute to the cost of a cup of coffee; premium coffee beans come from a broad range of geographical locations and attract whopping price tags for various reasons. If you’re ready to find out more, take a look at our guide to the most expensive coffees around the world.
10. Hawaiian Kona
First up is Hawaiian Kona, setting you back around £70/kg. This coffee is distinctive because it must be grown in Kona in Hawaii, an area benefiting from near-perfect growing conditions for coffee. The soil is rich in minerals and the climate is sunny, with little wind or rain.
Despite this, Hawaiian Kona is rare, which pushes up the price. Many producers mix Kona with cheaper roast coffee to make the supply more affordable and plentiful. Only around 10% of bags of this coffee are made purely with Kona beans. It’s light and mild but full of rich flavour. Whilst it may be a delicate bean, the taste and aroma are sophisticated and complex.
9. Los Planes
Los Planes is a rare breed of coffee, which raises the price. You can expect to pay about £75/kg. These beans are cultivated in El Salvador on a plantation run by the family of Sergio Ticas Yeyes. It’s grown from a unique hybrid Arabica coffee tree that was first developed by the Salvadoran Coffee Research Institute in the 1950s.
This coffee is an award-winner, noted for its refreshing taste and the unusual variety of flavours on offer like tangerine. Expect a complex but balanced taste, with brown sugar and fruity notes. Quantities of the coffee are often limited due to the size of the farming operation.
8. Fazenda Santa Inês
Fazenda Santa Ines originates from the base of the Brazilian Mantiqueira mountains and will set you back approximately £95/kg. This variety has been cultivated for over 100 years, meaning there’s real coffee expertise behind it.
Processed naturally, this coffee has won awards for its balanced taste, which includes citrus and rich fruity flavours. It tends to have a stronger fruit flavour than most Brazilian beans. Its bright and sweet taste has won it legions of fans around the world, which keeps the price high.
7. Jamaican Blue
Jamaican Blue is another well-regarded coffee costing about £100/kg. It’s grown at the foot of the Jamaican Blue mountains at an altitude of 5,000 feet. This area gets substantial rainfall throughout the year and has richly-fertilised soil, giving the beans their unique flavour.
This is a particularly mild coffee, which makes it popular with those who dislike stronger and more bitter coffees. It’s especially popular with the Japanese market, which is now one of the biggest importers of Jamaican Blue. It’s sweet, floral, and bright, making it a sought-after choice for both seasoned coffee fans and those who just prefer the occasional cup.
6. Molokai
Molokai coffee costs about £100/kg and originates from Hawaii. It’s grown, processed, and roasted in Kualapu’u in Maui County, an area considered to have some of the best conditions for growing coffee anywhere in the world. It’s legally protected too – Molokai coffee must come from this region and meet strict requirements.
The flavour of this coffee is rich with strong chocolate tones and only a mild acidity. It’s a complex cup and you might detect herbal notes in the aroma. This one is strong and robust but still has a wide appeal.
5. St. Helena
Next, we have St. Helena, grown on the island of St. Helena and priced at about £150/kg. Produced on a remote island approximately 1,200 miles from the African coast, the location makes these beans challenging to export, contributing to their high price. These beans also benefit from unique growing conditions.
This coffee is made from a single type of Arabica bean known as Green Tipped Bourbon Arabica. This is a delicate coffee bean that requires careful harvesting and processing. It creates a smooth and easy-to-drink cup of coffee with a broad appeal.
4. Kopi Luwak
Our next coffee is Kopi Luwak, one of the world’s best-known varieties and priced at approximately £300/kg. These beans are Indonesian and go through an unusual process. The coffee cherries are fed to civets - small mongoose-like mammals that can be found in the tropical forests of Asia and Africa - and then harvested from their faeces. As the civets digest the beans they ferment them, giving them an unmistakable flavour.
The taste has strong earthy tones and is often mustier than other coffees. Many coffee drinkers notice hints of caramel, chocolate, and nutty flavours. This deeply nuanced coffee draws many visitors to Indonesia each year to better understand its production.
3. Hacienda La Esmeralda
Hacienda La Esmeralda from Panama costs approximately £660/kg. The producers have established themselves as one of the world’s finest coffee cultivators, which contributes to its impressive price tag. The beans are grown under the shade of guava trees on the side of Mount Baru and have won multiple awards. At auction, the beans have reached record-breaking prices.
The flavour of Hacienda La Esmeralda is sweet and rich but with strong acidity. In both the aroma and the flavour, you can detect hints of peach, vanilla, lavender, and honey, making this one a uniquely-flavoured cup.
2. Finca El Injerto
Finca El Injerto attracts prices of £900/kg minimum. This coffee is grown in Guatemala and is also an award winner. Its multiple awards help to increase the price of the beans, as does the one-of-a-kind process for washing the beans to improve the quality of the grain.
This coffee is rich and full-bodied with a creamy mouthfeel. It’s sweet, smooth, and noted for its aroma of dark chocolate. You might also detect notes of tea, rose, tamarind, and coconut in this exclusive cup, plus sweet fruity flavours. This is a flavour profile you won’t find elsewhere.
1. Black Ivory Coffee
Finally, we come to Black Ivory Coffee, the most expensive variety in the world, costing a staggering £1,800/kg or more. Grown in Northern Thailand, these beans also go through a distinctive production process. Similar to Kopi Luwak, they’re fed to elephants on the plantation and extracted from their faeces. Only a few of the coffee cherries survive this process, making it exceedingly rare and therefore attracting a huge price tag.
If you can get hold of these beans, you’ll discover a distinctive coffee with hints of malt, spices, grass, and chocolate, with no bitterness or burnt flavours. It’s soft with a floral aroma – almost more like enjoying a cup of tea than a cup of coffee.
3 Incredible Value High Quality Coffees
While some of the coffees in our list undoubtedly offer a unique taste experience, it’s not always necessary to break the bank in order to serve coffee that tastes fantastic. Sourced from some of the world’s top coffee producers and roasted to perfection, the award winning range of wholesale coffee beans at PureGusto are consistently recognised for their superior taste and quality.
Here are some alternatives that offer incredible taste at prices that represent outstanding value for money.
1. Mama Cata
If you’re looking for exceptional quality at great value, take a look at our PureGusto Mama Cata coffee, which is available from as low as £10/kg (£0.08 per shot). This exceptional bean hails from Panama, and is then hand roasted using a special convection roasting process. The result is a coffee that is a double gold Great Taste Award winner, achieving a near flawless score when tested by independent experts.
Endorsed by the Speciality Coffee Association, Mama Cata delivers sweet and spicy notes, along with an irresistible sweet bitterness similar to baked apple, and is a must have for any gourmet coffee menu.
2. Santa Rosa Yellow Bourbon Coffee
Another double Great Taste award winner, the incredible Santa Rosa Yellow Bourbon coffee gets its name from the vibrant yellow colour of the coffee fruits first grown on Reunion island in the Indian Ocean, also often known as ‘Bourbon Island’.
These unique beans are grown in volcanic soil on a Rainforest Alliance certified farm that’s positioned over 1200 metres above sea level. The growing conditions are perfect for producing incredible coffee that delivers sweet plum flavours combined with caramel, and warm spiced notes on the finish. Combined with a superior convection roasting process to bring out the best from this great coffee, PureGusto’s Yellow Bourbon is a fantastic option that’s packed with flavour and is available at just over £9/kg ( £0.07 per shot)
3. Rio Magdalena
This superb Columbian coffee is grown by the Claros and Chavarro families at the Chorro Alto and El Placer farms in the foothills of the Andes. The high altitude of the farms and their incredibly fertile soil means that Colombian Rio Magdalena coffee is of exceptional quality, and is available from approximately £11/kg (£0.08 per shot).
Combined with the preferred convection roasting process used at PureGusto, Rio Magdalena coffee is a medium strength cup that delivers tropical fruit flavour with the perfect amount of crisp acidity for a flavoursome yet smooth drinking medium strength coffee.
