What is a $15 Cup of Coffee Like, Really? 

Equator Coffee on Market and Sixth streets has been selling $15 cups of Finca Sophia coffee for more than a week. Buzzfeed wrote a image-heavy story about it, and while it mostly contains complete sentences, it didn't provide much of a non-gif picture of what this coffee is really about. This isn't the most expensive cup of coffee I've ever heard of — a few years ago, there was that $20-per-cup batch of Kopi Luwak, or beans pooped out by civet cats in Southeast Asia — but, having tasted it, I can say it's the fanciest I've ever had.

I like Sightglass and Ritual as much as anyone, but I can be a little put off by coffee's preciousness. Tasting notes are lovely, but coffee is fundamentally a utilitarian beverage that most people drink with the taste of toothpaste still in their mouths. To confirm (or allay) my skepticism, I spoke with Akaash Saini, Equator's community engagement manager (and a contestant in barista competitions), who broke it all down while pouring it over.

Finca Sophia is an heirloom coffee from Ethiopia that Equator transplanted to its farm in the Central American highlands. The main reason it's so expensive, Saini explained, is that it grows at high altitudes. In what might be the highest-elevation coffee plantation in the Americas, at 2,100 meters above sea level, the three-to-five-year period before a coffee tree's first harvest lengthens to eight years. It's planted exclusively with Gesha, the hard-to-grow, tea-like varietal Stumptown calls the "Sun Ra Arkestraof coffee."

And I got the last of it — or so I was told at the time, as was the guy who got it right after me. (An Equator barista initially told me they'd sold out after making barely more than a dozen cups, but Saini went down into the catacombs to retrieve one last bag for me.) Supplies didn't last long online, either: A healthy run of pre-orders quickly exhausted this year's harvest.

"We didn't have a lot today," Saini said. "What we also did was sell them in these four-ounce packs, and sold out in 18 hours on our website for roasted coffee beans."

As for the flavor profile, Saini prizes Finca Sophia's "sparkling complexity," saying it has "sweetness for days." (The acid definitely gives some body to the coffee, the way it imparts structure to wine.)

"As it cools, it opens up more," he said. "People look at me when they try this, and go 'This doesn't need any cream or sugar.'"

Not that he would ever do that, right?

"Honestly, what I say to you is 'It's your coffee,'" he says. "I can give you tasting notes on what our guys are testing, but who am I to tell you? In reality, we're only here to make sure that everyone's happy. There are a lot of specialty coffee companies in the Bay Area, but I moved from Seattle because Equator does a really good job of trying not to be too pretentious. When you're selling a $15 cup, that makes it a little difficult, because now you have to have someone here who really cares about the product, and in general wants to tell a story and make it more about the coffee than about the price."

Blue Bottle, Sightglass, Ritual, and others roast Gesha coffees, Saini says, "but we're one of a handful of roasters that own a farm. It's an experimental lot, so we're only going to get about 500 to 1,000 pounds of this coffee in a harvest season."

I don't doubt it's produced in tiny batches, but the aroma of artificial scarcity is easy to sniff out. (As of Tuesday, Feb. 16, six days after my initial cup of Finca Sophia, Equator's sandwich board is still sitting on the sidewalk. I spoke with two baristas who confirmed that the roaster was about to send the very last three pounds to the store, after which time the café's stores will officially be depleted.

But the fact that it's fair-trade-and-then-some also nudges the price skyward.

"I honestly call these farmers my colleagues, straight up," Saini says. "We've had this farm for eight years and these farmers have worked for us for that duration, which is really hard to do. We pay for their children's schooling, we pay fair wages, and we pay for health insurance and security benefits. This is one of those things that as a company we've wanted to do —not to own a supply chain, but to show that this model of owning a coffee farm is possible. I'm going to be honest: I'm not making that much money off of this. What I'm doing is really showcasing how special this coffee is."

So there you have it: This delicious $15 cup of coffee, which is produced in tiny quantities, took eight years to mature, and the farmers who've been tending to the trees this whole time have been compensated appropriately for their labor. Is that worth it when you really just want a jolt of caffeine? Maybe, maybe not. Is it some bullshit hipster affectation? No.

But if you're curious —and you miss out on that last three pounds — you'll have to sit tight. Equator's next Finca Sophia harvest happens next December. Until then, there are plenty of $15 cocktails and $15 sandwiches in this town to go around.