World’s Rarest and Expensive Coffee : Black Ivory Coffee 

Produced in a rural province in northern Thailand, Black Ivory Coffee has one of the unique harvesting processes. With minimal mechanization, this rare coffee is refined naturally by elephants. This world’s rarest coffee and is sold primarily to select luxury hotels. However, a small portion is reserved for private consumption which can be purchased on their website for those adventurous food and drink lovers who appreciate luxury.

The mission of Black Ivory Coffee is to take a negative situation, namely human-elephant conflict and turn it into a positive one by creating a luxury product that helps not hurts elephants. It must also taste great, be distinctive and create a lasting, positive and memorable experience.

With 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of Black Ivory Coffee costing approximately around £2,000, Black Ivory Coffee is one of the world’s most expensive coffees. So, what makes this one of the world’s most expensive coffee as well as the rarest coffee?

The process begins with selecting the best 100% Thai Arabica cherries that have been picked from an altitude as high as 1500 meters.

Next, the cherries are brought to Surin where each elephant care-giving family mixes the cherries with the elephant’s favourite food. Examples include: rice, banana and tamarind. This combination helps to ensure that the elephant enjoys the snack and that there is additional nutritional benefit. Once ingested, the digestive process will begin and this can take between 12 to 72 hours depending on the amount of food already in the stomach of the elephant.

Once deposited by the elephants, the individual cherries are hand-picked by the elephant care-givers. The picked cherries are washed, raked and sun dried. Once dried the beans are roasted, packed in a one-way valve bag to ensure freshness and shipped out. To ensure freshness, coffee roasts to order and does not warehouse roasted coffee.

Approximately 33 kilograms of coffee cherries are required to produce just one kilogram of  coffee. The result is a very distinctive cup with notes of chocolate/cacao, spice, (tobacco and leather), malt, red cherry, a hint of grass and without the burnt or bitter taste of regular coffee. Packaged in a black box handmade from mulberry paper. Black Ivory Coffee is embossed in copper.

And the most amazing thing about the rare and world’s most expensive coffee is that, every purchase of Black Ivory Coffee will support The Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation as well as the families who care for the elephants.