• Dubai’s Roasters Specialty Coffee House is selling the world’s most expensive coffee at AED2,500 (US$680) per cup, according to the Guinness World Records.
• Naturally, this coffee is inaccessible to the majority of consumers, but some people are showing interest.
• Taiwan’s Simple Kaffa offered US$635 cups of Gesha earlier this year, selling an average of one per week.
• As premiumisation drives the specialty coffee market in regions like the Middle East and East Asia, we can expect prices for ultra-rare and exclusive coffees to rise even further.

Dubai’s Roasters Specialty Coffee House is selling a washed Panamanian Gesha for AED2,500 (US$680) per cup – the world’s most exclusive and expensive, according to the Guinness World Records.

Buyers in countries such as the UAE, China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Taiwan often utilise ultra-exclusive competition and auction coffees to differentiate their brands. Premiumisation drives this trend in these hyper-competitive markets, where an ingrained culture of exclusivity prevails for certain food and beverage products. 

Coffee that is rare and expensive is then perceived as valuable, which prompts a small number of people to pay incredibly high prices. But who exactly is buying these coffees – and how are they drinking them?

Kirk Pearson from Project Zero Coffee and Konstantin Harbuz from Roasters Specialty Coffee House share their insights.

You may also like our article on why coffee quality is no longer a differentiator for roasters.

Best of Panama continues to break records

Auction-winning coffee lots sell for higher prices every single year. Former record high prices – like US $21/lb in 2004 for a Panama Gesha – now pale in comparison to what some buyers are willing to pay for exceptional coffee.

At the 2025 BoP auction, Hacienda La Esmeralda received US$30,204/kg for its washed Gesha – surpassing the previous world record of US$13,518/kg set at a private auction in 2024. 

The farm also earned US$23,608/kg for its natural Gesha, breaking the record twice and reflecting the ultra-premium prices these exclusive lots command. Additionally, Esmeralda won the Varietal category, marking the first-ever triple win at BoP and culminating in a coffee auction for the ages.

The coffee that placed first in both the washed and natural categories, Nido, came from a plot that took 13 years to develop. It’s precisely these levels of exclusivity, prestige, and scarcity that drive prices to astronomical levels.

“There were a variety of factors that pushed this coffee to this height,” says Kirk, the founder of Project Zero Coffee and the host of The Coffee Show with Kirk Pearson. “First of all, it scored 98 points in what is recognised as a credible assessment in the Best of Panama International judging. Second, there is no guarantee that a coffee will ever score this highly again.

“Third, Esmerelda is the most recognised brand in terms of a coffee producer in the world. They’re the Dallas Cowboys of coffee farming, and because they achieved this grade of coffee, it reached this price.”

A total of 549 bids were placed on the 20kg washed Nido lot. Julith Coffee, a brand in Dubai that was only a week old at the time of the auction, placed the highest offer.

Roasters Specialty Coffee House, which operates 12 luxury all-day dining cafés across Dubai, also serves a coffee from the same farm. Brewed using a Hario V60 and presented in a bespoke Edo Kiriko crystal glass, this coffee is a strategic differentiator in the highly competitive and exclusive UAE market, where luxury products thrive, driven by demand from affluent customers.

This coffee’s limited availability means it can’t be served like any other.

“Today, our Panama Esmeralda experience is available via pre-booking only,” says Konstantin, the founder of Roasters Specialty Coffee House. “We have already received many requests from celebrities, bloggers, and coffee enthusiasts.”

Why Dubai is home to the world’s most expensive coffee

A coffee with such a high price tag will inevitably attract prestigious clientele – but it also helps drive interest on a much larger scale.

Founded by Turkish Barista and Coffee Roasting Champion Serkan Sagsoz, Julith Coffee, an omakase-style concept, made headlines after purchasing the BoP-winning coffee. Only a week after its launch, people around the world associated the brand with the world’s most expensive coffee – and wanted to know why.

“We have matured as an industry to the point where we now have a ‘luxury’ or ‘reserve’ category,” Kirk explains. “What is clear, given the prices of not only this coffee, but also some of the others at auction, is that there is an emerging market for luxury coffee.”

Nido’s home in Dubai makes sense. Like other prestigious markets, such as China, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Japan, consumers correlate exclusivity with value. Price is a reflection of this, and they are willing to pay higher prices for what they consider more valuable. This phenomenon is known as premiumsation: the process of leveraging exclusivity, rarity, and superior quality to drive up brand appeal and prices.

The overall economic expansion and rising disposable income in these regions favour this consumption mentality.

“Clearly, ultra-wealthy people, which is an ever-increasing cohort in today’s world, are buying these coffees,” says Kirk. “Let’s not forget that Dubai is a tax haven for many of the world’s richest people, so there are wealthy people there with money to spend, and this is probably just an activity for them on any given day. They want to say they tried the most expensive coffee in the world.

“I imagine there is also a large number of corporations that are wining and dining their clients, and buying them coffees like this.”

In Taiwan, another market that values luxury, Simple Kaffa – founded by World Barista Champion Berg Wu – recently sold an Elida Estate Gesha for US$635 per cup. Berg told Food and Wine that the coffee shop sold two to four cups of the coffee per week when it was first launched in October 2024. By March, orders had dropped to one cup per week, still indicating a steady level of demand.

Japan’s OneByOne reportedly once sold US$970 cups of BoP-winning Elida Gesha Natural Vuelta – which would make it the world’s most expensive coffee per serving. At auction, this coffee received a bid of US$10,013/kg.

South Korea’s Black Road Coffee also sold single servings of the Aguacatillo Honey Gesha, formerly the world’s most expensive per kilogram, for an undisclosed price.

The success of auction-winning coffees in these markets underscores that the majority of consumers who purchase them are undoubtedly wealthy. 

“I don’t think a barista would spend a week’s or more salary on one coffee, and I would never encourage them to do so,” Kirk says. “You can still drink coffee close to this quality for under US$30 a cup.”

However, there is also a psychological aspect behind luxury purchasing – even when it’s unaffordable. People buy expensive products to convey their social status and express their personal identity, driven by a desire for emotional satisfaction and the promise of higher quality.

Australian and US roaster Proud Mary sold cups of Gesha for US$150 in 2023, noting that three people would sometimes share one cup to split the cost, making a luxury experience more affordable.

In the case of Roasters Specialty Coffee House, however, paying over US$230 to drink roughly 100ml of coffee means the benefits may not justify the costs. More importantly, even this lower price remains out of the budgets of most customers; these coffees will always be inherently inaccessible.

Expect to see new record prices for coffee

Paying nearly US$700 for a cup of filter coffee may seem unfathomable to most people, but it highlights changing perceptions of quality and value. 

“A cup of coffee for US$680 won’t be popular in some countries; it’s very rare, but we think it should be more popular,” Konstatin says. Other premium products, such as whiskey, wine, and certain types of tea, which have historically been valued more highly than coffee, sell for significantly more at auctions.

“I only see demand increasing in the future as wealth concentrates to a smaller percentage of the population and scarcity increases because of climate change,” Kirk says. “The demand for coffee is rising globally because interest is at an all-time high. Prices for all coffee will likely only go up, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see it rise higher than US$30,000/kg.”

But because they distinguish the “best of the best”, price discovery mechanisms at auctions often far exceed those through more traditional trade platforms. In short, auction prices rarely reflect the realities of the broader market, where millions of smallholder farmers struggle to earn a living wage and are trapped in a cycle of poverty.

Additionally, the inherent exclusivity of these coffees means the majority of producers will never be able to grow them – otherwise, they would lose their sense of prestige and rarity. Moreover, the market for these coffees will always remain small and hyper-competitive, meaning the risk of struggling to recoup investment is high.

But new, albeit still largely inaccessible, opportunities may emerge in the future.

“The BoP scoring system allows Washed and Natural Gesha to thrive, while not allowing experimental coffees to score at all,” says Kirk. “I think we will see mind-bending prices for coffees from producers like Lost Origin in Panama, Mikava in Colombia, and Daterra in Brazil. These are experimental producers that I think will shatter records for experimental coffees.

“I expect Takesi in Bolivia to break records if they ever try. They grow the most scarce, luxury coffee in the world that only sells to a handful of international roasters, and they’re every bit as good as Esmerelda,” he adds. “If I had millions to drop on coffee, that would be the first farm I would go to.”

Regions such as the Middle East and East Asia will continue to be the target markets for record-breaking coffees – where only a handful of buyers will be able to try these coffees.

Given their history of premiumisation with other food and beverage products, there’s no telling how high the price for a cup of coffee could go.

Enjoyed this? Then read our article on why roasting deserves more attention at coffee auctions.

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