The recipe for the beverage, which is called “Golden Coffee/Tea,” was created by Andrej Bindig, who owns Cafe Art, a Vienna-based coffee/tea bar.
If you’re going to drink it, however, you’ll need to be in Vienna at the Cafe Art location. The beverage costs $1,000 and requires 10 hours of work by four baristas, according to the Golden Coffee/Tea website.
The site says the beverage includes “rare ingredients and over 300 hand-made procedures.”
In other words: It’s not just normal coffee/tea, but very expensive coffee/tea.
Called the “Café Galao,” this $1,000 coffee/tea drink is not a simple latte or cappuccino. Instead, it is made with a combination of first-class coffee beans and the “finest” tea leaves. It is also served in a hand-painted cup that is unique for each customer.
Tricks like these make the drink’s price tag well worth it. The owner of Café Galao, Miguel Valverde, said that he spent two years searching for the perfect cup for his expensive offering. It was finally found in one of the finest ceramics factories in Portugal.
To make the Café Galao, customers are given a menu and asked to choose from among three different blends of coffee or three different kinds of tea. A cup is then chosen, and then a painter uses watercolors to reproduce one of five paintings on its side.
The painting will then be fired so that it becomes part of the cup itself. Finally, gold dust will be sprinkled on top of the drink to give it an extra touch of luxury.”
I’m not sure how expensive coffee and tea is, but I know how expensive milk is. The price of milk can increase a lot depending on what’s happening with the demand and supply of milk.
In agriculture there are two factors that can dramatically increase the price of milk: disease and weather. Disease requires government intervention to reduce the supply so that the market can adjust to the new conditions. When the weather gets bad, sometimes farmers have to destroy part of their herd to prevent disease from spreading. It costs more money to take care of the animals during these harsh times, but otherwise they would suffer even greater losses if they had to destroy all their animals because of disease or weather.
The most expensive coffee/tea drink in the world is called a “coffee-cognac infusion.” It’s made with espresso, cognac and whole milk, topped with whipped cream. The ingredients cost about $900.00 per cup!
In the world of fine dining, it is not uncommon for patrons to order a $1,000 coffee or tea drink. Some of these drinks are decadent and tasty, made from rare ingredients that are shipped in from around the world. Others are just plain crazy.
Takashi Yamamoto, owner of the first coffee shop in the world with a $1,000 cup of coffee (the Caffè Macchiato), once prepared a $10,000 latte. On another occasion, he served a cup of coffee for $50,000. But these drinks were just novelties—one-time deals.
Takashi Yamamoto has now set his sights on creating an extravagant beverage on a more regular basis. His most recent creation will set you back $1 million and includes three pounds of 23-karat gold flakes.*
Yamamoto’s precious concoction is made with 23-karat gold leaf and comes topped with flakes of edible 23-karat gold and sprinkled with 10 ounces of pink Himalayan salt. The drink itself is said to taste like sweet honey and is made with Brazilian Santos Rosewood Truffles that have been soaked in French champagne for three months. The finished product contains 18 grams of sugar per serving.*
In the world of fine food and drink, you can’t just slap together a new recipe. You have to first create a new product category. You need to be able to say, “Everyone has been making coffee/tea this way until now, but now it will be done this new way.”
So, how do you make the world’s most expensive coffee/tea? The first step is to come up with an idea that no one has tried before – even if it’s not very good. After all, it’s the idea that matters.
The next thing you need is a marketing program that convinces people your product is worth more than competing products. Nowadays, this is usually accomplished by convincing people your product is rare.
As for taste, let’s not go into details here.
In a previous post , I mentioned that I had an amazing Italian coffee once. Well, part of it was the price. $1000 for one cup of coffee. It was made from Tres Cepas beans, which is a blend of three different types of beans that are only grown in a certain region of Costa Rica. The beans themselves are the most expensive coffee beans in the world, selling anywhere from $80 to $106 per pound (each bag is 12 ounces).
Tres Cepas means “three grapes” in Spanish and refers to the fact that all three kinds of beans (Costa Rican, Colombian, and Ethiopian) grow on vines. In order to make this ultra-high-end coffee/tea, you need to buy all three kinds of beans and then grind them up together. The result is a super smooth and rich coffee/tea drink that will put Starbucks to shame.
Ingredients:
1. 1 gold coin
2. 1 diamond ring (of at least 1 carat)
3. 20 mg of gold powder
4. 8 grams of ground coffee beans and/or 10 grams of tea leaves (amounts can vary depending on personal taste)
5. A high-end blender (Vitamix, etc.)
6. 50 ml of water (room temperature or cold) for every gram of coffee or tea you are using
Instructions: Blend the above ingredients in a high-end blender for 45 seconds to one minute. Serve cold in a fine china cup.
