Western Sydney cafe offers $1500 cup of coffee that has brought people to tears

A small cafe in western Sydney brews the “rarest coffee in Australia”, served by “appointment only” and for an eye-watering price.

If you think the price of coffee at your local cafe is getting a bit pricey, you may want to brace yourself before reading about this $1500 brew found in western Sydney.

The Brew Lab Cafe in Penrith claims to offer the “rarest coffee in Australia”, a brew so special it is served by “appointment only” for an eye-watering price.

Cafe owner Mitchell Johnson, who has tasted the “phenomenal” cup of joe, says the coffee is so special he has literally seen it bring customers to tears.

A picture of the coveted coffee.

A look at the $1500 cup of coffee.

“It’s an exceptional coffee, the kind of coffee that makes people cry. I know that sounds crazy but it’s happened, it’s brought them to tears,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

The coffee is a filtered single origin variety grown at the base of a volcano in Panama, about 1700m above sea level.

The beans are regarded as some of the best in the world, rated well above 90 points on the official ‘specialty’ grading scale – which is the base grade for “outstanding” coffee set by the Specialty Coffee Association.

Any coffee graded 80 or more by qualified Q graders (aka coffee sommeliers) is considered “specialty”. These coffees, which are already incredibly rare, can be graded “very good” (scored above 80), “excellent” (scored above 85), and “outstanding” (scored between 90 and 100).

The beans that make the $1500 coffee are so special that Ninety Plus Estate, the company that produces, harvests, and roasts it, refuse to name the beans or its batch number to try and keep it under wraps.

Ninety Plus Estate, the brand that sells the coffee wants to keep it under wraps. Picture: Supplied.

Mr Johnson, who regularly imports bespoke specialty coffee varieties, told The Daily Telegraph drinking the rare brew is a special, appointment-only experience that only two people have tried.

The cafe has to order the beans when the customer orders the coffee. The order is then roasted in Panama and transported to Australia by private jet.

Brewing the coffee – which is served black with no additives or sweeteners – is a labour of love, finetuned to extract the most flavour from the beans.

The meticulous process involves precise measurements, pre-dampened filter paper and multiple sessions of pouring with water, boiled to exactly 94 degrees Celsius and timed to the second.

Any more or any less and it can completely change the end result.

“This particular coffee, you drink it as it cools down and the flavours change and evolve, giving way to tastes of peach, strawberry, lemonade, rose and juniper,” Mr Johnson told The Daily Telegraph.

He said the coffees are drunk in a special “after-hours experience” behind closed doors, where customers are talked through the entire process.

Although only two people have tried the $1500 cup, the Brew Lab also offers slightly more affordable $100 and $200 options – the latter reportedly has notes of pineapple, hops and dulce de leche and has been bought seven times.

It is certainly a level up from your bog standard cappuccino or flat white, but maybe being among the elite crowd who has sampled these special concoctions is the true marker of being a coffee snob.

Originally published as Western Sydney cafe offers $1500 cup of coffee that has brought people to tears