Tea and coffee are drinks that start a person's morning, regardless of where he is in the world. They help to cheer up, quench thirst and give unique aromas and tastes. Tea and coffee are the second most popular in the world after drinking water. Every day, people all over the planet drink more than 2 billion cups of tea and more than 2.5 billion cups of coffee. There are a lot of varieties of both the first and second drinks, they differ from each other not only in tastes and varieties, but also in price.
There are a huge number of varieties of tea and coffee, a person chooses the one that best suits his tastes and, of course, material capabilities. Not everyone can afford the well-known varieties, and someone does not recognize anything but drinks "in bags".
The most expensive and unusual varieties of tea and coffee
Kopi Luwak is the most valuable coffee in the world, produced in Indonesia. It is valued not so much because of the uniqueness of the grains, but rather because of the way they are processed. A kilogram of coffee of this type will cost coffee lovers $ 400.
The "highlight" of the Luwak coffee variety is that it is a waste product of the Luwak animal. This small predator is very fond of the fruits of the coffee tree, and he chooses the best and ripe for delicacies. Luwak loves coffee so much that he eats more than he can digest. Kopi Luwak - Undigested grains that have passed through the digestive system of Luwak and are exposed to enzymes.
Now resourceful businessmen are trying to establish industrial production of Luwak coffee, but true connoisseurs believe that this impairs the taste. After all, on farms, animals live in cages, and they do not have the opportunity to choose the best grains.
Having learned about the value of Luwak coffee, Yangshi An, an enterprising resident of the Chinese province of Sichuan, decided to start the production of panda tea. Pandas, like the luwaks, do not fully digest the eaten bamboo greens, which was taken as the basis of the idea by a resourceful businessman. Panda tea is made from unprocessed bamboo by panda stomachs - feces. Yanshi An was right - there were connoisseurs willing to give $ 80,000 per kilogram of his exclusive product.
Coffee and tea prized for their rarity and taste
The most expensive tea in the world is “Scarlet Mantle” (Da Hong Pao), so named because of the color of the buds of its tree in May. Da Hong Pao is a variety of oolong tea, famous since the Qing Dynasty. This variety is sold exclusively at auctions, where the price per kilogram reaches $ 700,000.
The Scarlet Mantle tea variety is valued not only for its rarity, but also for its taste. The initial light bitterness of Da Hong Pao is replaced by the aroma of exotic fruits, flowers and ancient wine.
The high cost is primarily due to the rarity of tea. The fact is that in total there are 6 bushes in China, from which a scanty harvest of "Scarlet Mantle" is harvested once a year - 500 grams. The peculiarity of the bushes is that, according to experts, their age is more than 350 years.
The most expensive coffee made without the use of animal waste is Hacienda La Esmeralda. This coffee has an unrivaled taste and is priced at $ 104 for 450 g. The Esmeralda coffee trees grow in Panama, on Mount Baru in the shade of ancient Guava trees.
