THE GUARDIAN:
The Guardian Tries the £50 Cup
Archie Bland visits Queens of Mayfair to taste the record Ethiopian lot that only Harrods and Difference Coffee secured in the UK.
The Guardian sent Archie Bland to Queens of Mayfair in September 2020 to taste the most expensive cup of coffee in the UK: the record setting Ethiopian Cup of Excellence champion, supplied by Difference Coffee.
The piece records the facts behind the £50 serving. The lot from producer Nigussie Gemeda Mude set a record at the Cup of Excellence auction, where an international consortium paid £314 per kilo, and in the UK only Harrods and Difference Coffee secured a share. Head barista Sabrina Pastano hand brews each serving, and Bland describes the result as mellow, clean and comforting, as light as it is restorative, before puncturing his own reverie with the quip in the headline, that something in it reminds him of vegetable soup. Asked whether any cup is worth £50, his answer is no, and the experts he consults frame the price the way fine wine and whisky are framed: three time UK barista champion Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood calls the underlying bean genuinely special and the auction's blind tasting rigorous, while the producer, reflecting on the record price, said he now understands why coffee is called "the green gold".
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