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Think Starbucks is expensive? This coffee costs $75 a cup

The $75 cup of coffee
This cup of coffee costs $75 01:26
  • Unroasted beans fetched a record $803 per pound at auction, and cost nearly $1,200 after roasting.
  • A Southern California chain purchased 10 pounds of the organic beans used to make an exclusive brew known as Elida Geisha Natural.
  • Klatch Coffee Roasters is offering 18 grams of the exclusive beans for $75, or enough to make a cup.

Alas, there are no free refills for caffeine aficionados who are willing to pay 75 bucks for a cup of rare java now being served in a chain of Southern California coffee houses.

Klatch Coffee Roasters bought 10 pounds of a single-source organic coffee bean used to make an exclusive brew called Elida Natural Geisha. The bean fetched a record $803 a pound at auction and almost $1,200 after roasting.

Those 10 pounds represent only 10% of the 100 pounds auctioned off worldwide at the Best of Panama green coffee auction held by the Speciality Coffee Association of Panama in July 2018.

Billed as a rare variety of Arabica coffee with origins in Ethiopia that went to Panama by way of a research lab in Costa Rica, Geisha is described as having floral, tea-like and stone fruit flavors.

Klatch is offering the brew for $75 a cup at five locations in Southern California, as well as online, where 18 grams, or 0.63 ounces, of bean can be purchased.

"I will definitely pay a premium, but $75 — probably not going to be happening for one cup," customer Kevin Gandy told CBS Los Angeles at a Klatch shop in San Dimas, California.

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