From the Intelligentsia Coffee website:

Taste the World’s Most Expensive Coffee at Intelligentsia Coffee’s Chicago Roasting Works

Last May, Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea purchased a lot of Hacienda la Esmeralda’s famed Geisha coffee at auction for a staggering $130 per pound, the highest amount ever paid for coffee. On October 1, Chicagoans will have a chance to taste the fabled brew and judge whether it measures up.

On Monday, October 1, 2007, at 7:00 p.m., Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea will host Daniel Peterson of Hacienda la Esmeralda for a preview party at Intelligentsia’s Roasting Works, located at 1850 W. Fulton Street in Chicago. Admission is $25.00. Guests will receive samples of this exquisite coffee, freshly brewed to order on Intelligentsia’s Clover coffee machine, as well as a quarter pound bag of Esmeralda Especial, a non-auction lot from the Hacienda La Esmeralda estate.

A very limited quantity of the auction-winning Esmeralda will be available for purchase at the event. The coffee will sell for $99.00 per half pound and $55.00 per quarter pound. Future roastings of the coffee will occur on Mondays, while supplies last. The coffee will be made available to the public after the preview party online at www.intelligentsiacoffee.com and at Intelligentsia’s three retail stores in Chicago and at their newest location in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood.

Hors d’oeuvres and wine will also be served.

—

Is this coffee worth the price? I don’t know, but the Tribune has a review of it here.