It is pretty easy to go around the corner and buy that cup of joe. But in New York City, a single cup of coffee at Eleven Madison Park, the Michelin-starred dining spot, will cost you $24.
The coffee is prepared right next to your table by Maya Albert, the restaurant’s coffee director. It takes her about 10 minutes, according to The Wall Street Journal, and she is using a Silverton “dripper,” which is a brewing apparatus that looks like something she probably took out of a science lab. There are three stages of preparation, like the “bloom” period, which is when the ground beans first meet the hot water, according to WSJ.
The coffee itself is a rare variety, called Wush Wush. It is sourced from a farm in Colombia, writes WSJ, and Eleven Madison Park charges $48 for 10 ounces. According to Albert, it has a creamy texture that reminds her of “dough or yogurt, ” and it tastes “like blueberry pie.”
The WSJ writes that many Americans are enjoying the “third wave” in coffee. Basically, people went from your average, everyday cup, to higher-end brews offered by Starbucks, and now, they are focusing on coffee that has been farm-to-table sourced and brewed using alternative methods.
Porto Rico Importing Co. is a 110-year-old coffee specialist in New York. It has varieties that go for nearly $100 a pound, reports WSJ. Even Starbucks now offers “reserve” coffees at certain locations.
Head over to Brooklyn and you’ll find Extraction Lab, a coffee shop that sells an $18 cup of coffee, using a $13,900 Alpha machine that controls every aspect. They use a brew called Geisha, writes WSJ.
Never fear, the other side of the country has a $55 special cup at Klatch Coffee in Los Angeles. They plan to roll out a particularly special cup next month called the Esmeralda Geisha 601. That 601 is the price per pound that the coffee sold at auction, reports WSJ.
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