This post is about a month late in the coming, but I had to give it a brief write up to pay appropriate homage to both Intelligentsia Coffee and Hacienda La Esmerelda.

The Millenium Park Intelligentsia store maintains a short list of coffees you can order for brewing on the Clover. I love the Clover as an alternative to espresso shots because it emphasizes the more subtle flavors of the beans that are usually lost in a drip or french press brew without sacrificing the body. Anyway, Intelly typically has a small menu listing 5 to 6 coffees you can order on the Clover at a given time that cost $2-3 for a 12 oz. cup.
I walked in one day and coffee listed on the Clover menu with a price tag in excess of $10. The baristas confirmed that it was indeed the Esmerelda Special from La Hacienda Esmerelda that won at the 2006 Best of Panama auction. It’s not every day you can drop $10 on 12 oz of liquid and not be purchasing wine, but on the other hand, a $10 wine is nothing to write home about. Coffee prices, on the other hand, haven’t ballooned the way wine prices have. Call me crazy, but being able to taste what is literally the best coffee Panama has to offer for such a low price is a deal.

So I ordered up my unusually high priced coffee, which was served with a great degree of care and awe. (It’s likely there weren’t too many consumers there buying this stuff.) The taste was really excellent, as was the mouthfeel. Any description of the taste profile that I could give would fall short, but the overall sensation imparted was one of perfect balance. Sipping that stuff suffused my spirit with a sense of warmth and joy.

I like to think that I have a decent palate, but drinking Panama’s finest was an experience that had me out of my depth. I could tell that the coffee was exemplary, but my tasting skills were probably not equipped to identify the winner from any of the close runners up. That type of fine differentiation is best left to more qualified judges. Suffice it to say, I really enjoyed the cup and even dragged my buddies in to try it themselves, but it also made me appreciate the taste buds of the experts.