To Be Honest, I'd Pay $1000 for a Decent Cheese Danish

I will not be buying Hacienda La Esmeralda coffee. Not that I ever have.

This Panama estate sells coffee that costs more than $100 a pound, but that isn't the reason I'm restraining myself. Considering what we pay for wine, $100 isn't horrible. Nor is it because I can't figure out whether the actual name of that $100-a-pound coffee is "Hacienda La Esmeralda Especial" or "Hacienda La Esmeralda Geisha" or "Hacienda La Esmeralda Jaramillo." I've seen it all three ways. Coffee designations have now officially equaled wine designations in needless complexity.

The coffee I'm talking about recently sold for $103.90 a pound. I hear it tastes good. A writer for the Chicago Tribune said it "dances wildly across the palate." Not many newspaper columnists can even dance across a room, which might be why he got so excited.

What bothers me about this coffee is that it was created by removing the best coffee beans from the estate's general production and creating an elite blend. The company admitted that those particular beans come from "one area that was producing an exceptional cup."

That's called cannibalizing. What remains for schnooks who are willing to pay a meager $15-20 a pound for ordinary La Esmeralda coffee is a blend not quite as good as it used to be. It's like buying a porterhouse steak after the filet has been sold separately to a rich guy who's a friend of the butcher.

You see that happening frequently in the wine world, and it's dismaying. Wineries produce single-vineyard bottlings where the most promising grapes are separated and sold under a special label to wealthy collectors. What's left goes into the commercial cuvée. (To their credit, the great Bordeaux estates almost never do this.)

Here's my advice: If this becomes widespread in the coffee business, switch to tea.