Specialty coffee · Worth knowing

Premium pour overs priced at US$20 or more have become a specialty café trend in mature markets, appealing to a committed group of coffee enthusiasts who seek rare lots like Cup of Excellence winners or unusual regional varieties. Success with these high-priced offerings depends on barista training, clear storytelling about the coffee's origin and processing, and consistent brewing—some cafés use automated brewers to ensure quality while freeing baristas to enhance the customer experience. The economics require premium pour overs to complement a strong core menu rather than stand alone, with value delivered through the entire experience: from showcasing whole beans and sharing tasting notes with customers to presenting the brew personally, making customers focus on the coffee itself rather than the price.

Black & White Roasters, founded by two US Barista Champions in 2017, has released a cinnamon anaerobic coffee from Costa Rican producer Esteban Zamora that showcases an innovative processing technique. The defining step involves a six-day anaerobic fermentation where coffee cherries with mucilage intact are combined with cinnamon powder at a 1:46 ratio in GrainPro bags, creating a seal around the seed that requires mechanical drying to complete. This specialized cinnamon anaerobic (co-ferment) process, pioneered by Zamora and hand-processed on his five-hectare family farm, produces remarkable confectionary sweetness with distinct cinnamon-roll character, baked apple, and orange zest notes.

A Matter of Concrete's Reza Nurullah has developed a yeast-inoculated anaerobic honey process for Liberica that combines locally sourced yeast cultures with fermentation in an anaerobic environment, followed by drying as red honey with approximately 50% mucilage retention. This processing technique builds sweetness while preserving Liberica's distinctive character, resulting in concentrated notes of stevia, honey, and sugarcane with an outspoken, polarizing profile designed as an "experience coffee" rather than everyday drinking coffee.