I have had the opportunity to cup our Hacienda Esmeralda Gesha vac pack lots (#2, #10) from last year against the new crop, and was surprised at the quality of the ’08 coffees. I took the most expensive coffee from the ’09 auction home for the weekend, and brewing it every which way, I made coffee I thought was “nice” but nothing that really popped out, nothing I would pay $117 a pound for! It made me think about what I really would pay for a very special coffee, and during the long Memorial Day weekend I came up with a figure, $45 per pound, as a reasonable amount for really top notch, award winning coffee. At that rate, each cup is about $2, which seems like a fair price. And if I roasted a batch that really “nailed it on the head” and another that was a shade too dark, or too light, I wouldn’t be all broken up about it. So I decided, given the fact we have a few expensive coffees in vacuum pack that are not selling in this down economy, why not have a $45/Lb. sale? We are offering our formerly $125 Panama Esmeralda Gesha Lot 2 for $45/Lb (without the pound of Lot 10 we were previously pairing it with), and we also have the $92 Guatemala Cup of Excellence #1, El Injerto Pacamara, a blistering-good coffee, at $45 per Lb. We are also reducing the price on Panama Esmeralda Gesha Lot 10 to $13/Lb in anticipation of the ’09 lot we bought, which will sell for around $35 per Lb when it arrives. We bought only about 300 pounds of Esmeralda in the auction this year. We have cupped all of these vacuum pack coffees and they are fresh as they day they came in!
Two thirds off the Esmeralda. That’s a good deal for us but you just wrote off thousands of dollars in losses. Look at the bright side. The coffee is still good and we’ll enjoy it.
When you think of the poor tomato farmers last year who had good tomatoes that rotted because of the salmonella scare it doesn’t seem so bad.
The Esmeralda #2 is sold out now. The Guatemala 1st Place Cup of Excellence, El Injerto Pacamara is still available though, gladly…