WOULD YOU PAY $7 FOR A CUP OF COFFEE?

Recently saw a tweet from Jack Groot where he forwarded an article by Ben Popken, a TODAY contributor.  Popken asks, “Fancy a $7 cup of Starbucks? “

In this day of skyrocketing gas and food prices, only a select few do.  But that's the price for a special rare brew Starbucks is serving up in only 48 stores in the country and 46 of them are in Seattle and Portland.  Ask for "Costa Rica Finca Palmilera," and pay over $40 for a half-pound. 

Starbucks said there's a very good reason for the premium price on this "exotic" blend from a rare "Geisha varietal" line, which comes from an ancient line of plants that traces its lineage back to Ethiopia.  They didn't make very much of it.   It's simple supply and demand, created for demanding coffee fans in two of the nation's most coffee-centric cities. 

The coffee "only grows at extremely high altitudes, and because of the tree’s low yield allows for more of the soil's nutrients to reach each cherry, intensifying the coffee's vibrant flavors," said the Starbucks spokesperson.  "A trained nose and palate might pick up delicate floral aromas, flavors of white peach and pineapple, and a juicy herbal complexity in this coffee."  In addition, all the beans came from just 3 hectares out of a single 90 hectare estate, yielding a tiny amount, a mere 3,800 pounds.  "Costa Rica Finca Palmilera" is part of the Starbucks "Reserve" line of coffees, where the company hunts down rare and flavorful beans in origin countries and makes them available at just a few stores for a brief period of time. 

"It is the highest price we've ever had," a Starbucks spokesperson told TODAY. "It raises the bar."

Would you pay $7 for a cup of coffee?

The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company can get your money-saving coffee consumption going with our four brands of gourmet coffees.  You’ll get a real start on having a great day with PANIOLA 100% Kona Cowboy Coffee, grown on Hawaiian volcanoes and roasted in the Rocky Mountains … the one with no bitter aftertaste and no acidity.  CAFÉ PINON de Nuevo Mexico is the Southwest’s favorite with pinion nuts and a perfect way to improve your mental functions during the day.  And our MOKA-JAVA is a medium dark roasted blend of Indonesian and Ethiopian coffees that will make you positively positive!  We also make COWBOY ACTION COFFEE, the Official Coffee of the Single Action Shooting Society! 

The purpose of this blog is to unite Kona coffee lovers and perhaps learn a little about coffee and all the benefits of coffee at the same time.  Join up, become a member, comment and have fun!  You can find the Kona Coffee Fiends group on Facebook and we’d appreciate it if Facebook users would “LIKE” the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company page at www.facebook.com/pages/Kona-Cowboy-Coffee-Company/222070817858553.  Just copy and paste to your browser.  You can also find us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/jackshuster.  And on the web at www.KonaCowboyCoffee.com to order your gourmet coffee and coffee products.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when all your kids are named "Joe"!  So enjoy your coffee, make it Kona, and remember, Kona is the home of the Hawaiian cowboy…and we had cowboys in Kona before there were cowboys in Texas!