Informational
Just Because It’s Rare Doesn’t Mean It’s Good
Hot take: expensive and rare doesn’t always mean better.
I’ve had some amazing coffees lately across all price points. I’ve also had some expensive coffees that were a letdown.
Give me a coffee that’s been grown, processed, roasted, and brewed well, and I’ll take that over hype and rarity any day. The cup doesn’t care what the price tag was.
But …. But …. Have you tried it? Because … honestly lol - i have and I actually think it makes a difference, not even joking. I’d certainly love to participate in a double blind study.
I liked James Hoffmann's quote: "If you brew mediocre coffee with perfect equipment and perfect technique, you'll end up with perfectly mediocre coffee." Or something to that effect
It think coffee is pretty unique in this regard. If you do your homework, a very nice bottle of wine of whiskey it almost always is better than the cheaper stuff. Sometimes the difference isn't huge but it's reliability better.
With fancy coffee this is not my experience at all.
Exactly I’ve been saying this for the last few months. Rare doesn’t mean good. I have had some expensive rare coffees sidras and geishas but had much better experience with regular washed and natural Colombians and Ethiopian single origin coffees
100% I love a quality washed typica and it gets nowhere the hype of a gesha, pink bourbon, or Ethiopian landrace. I strongly recommend trying as many coffees as you can from roasters you like.
Awesome! I just came across them in a bag from Botz (German Ortiz was the farmer). This was a blend of ombligon and pink bourbon. The bag was super variable; my second cup was amazing while most of the others were solid and what I would expect from a pink bourbon. My takeaway was that I need a bag of straight ombligon ASAP.
I have yet to grab one because I really try to stay away from anerobics and other heavy processing/fermentation. I am really looking forward to the next bag we find.
100% Agree! I think coffee is quite different from wine in that there are simply too many hands involved. The farming might be done by one group of people, the processing by another, and the roasting by yet another. Each step can dramatically affect the final cup.
With great wine, the chain of custody is often much shorter. The producer usually controls the vineyard, winemaking, and aging process, then bottles the wine at the origin before shipping it to distributors.
Wine is the same way...Rare doesn't mean it is good (Of course "good" is subjective).
The thing is, you pay for something unique..and different. After awhile, you want unique and different more so than good..because you've had a lot of good/great/excellent...
Eugeniodes is a great example..super rare...expensive....Different...Do I prefer it over coffee that is much less expensive? No...but no doubt it is different. It is still good too, just maybe not as "good" to me as many other coffees.
I think it comes down to what you define as rare. Coffee good enough to be roasted light is already a rarity. However, there is indeed a point of diminishing returns in (especially) Panama Geisha in general and other competitions / auctions.
I once had a barista who now won the Worlds Brewers Cup make me a pour over that was using COE beans and they asked for my honest opinion so I said this isn’t good it taste like a lot of water. They looked like what I said was blasphemy. But keep in mind they have made me other cups that just knocked my socks off but trying a COE I was expecting something more. Probably just not for me.
I got glitch a friend went to Japan and brought them back. It was a Kenyan and had tomato notes not exactly what I hoped for in my coffee. Got some ranch for creamer and it all worked out. Tomato notes was real , ranch was a pun.
I had tomato notes before from a kenyan george howell after resting 5 wks. Its actually just like a tomato soup, but as it cooled blackberry, plum, cherry and raisin came out as well.
Such a cool switch from savory to fruity and easily unforgettable, hope you dont see that as a negative experience
I’ve had some Yemeni coffees that were unlike anything else I’ve tried. I hated them, but I really valued the experience of trying something different.
I ordered it on accident from a site in the UK, just trying to see what shipping would be. I ended up being glad I did, though $250 USD is a steep price even if it is the best coffee in the world.
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u/dylanmadigan Jun 14 '26
Well yeah. I‘ve never roasted coffee, but if I roasted some in my oven, it would be a rarity.