Is St. Helena Coffee Worth the Price? The World's Most Expensive Coffee Bean and Its Historical Story

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St. Helena Coffee: One of the World's Ten Most Expensive Coffees

St. Helena Coffee, one of the world's ten most expensive coffees, was out of stock in Taiwan for two years. The annual production of green beans shrank from 12 metric tons to just 275 kilograms. Taiwan's first official import of St. Helena Coffee was in 2006. It comes from a small British island in the Atlantic Ocean. It is said that Napoleon once left the famous words: "Coffee is the only good thing on St. Helena Island!"

St. Helena Coffee is a very delicate variety with rich aftertaste. It is smooth and bright upon entry, with a hint of apple acidity, accompanied by some milky aroma, walnut flavor, and a slight tobacco taste.

Napoleon believed that the only good thing from this small island was coffee.

The Island of St. Helena

St. Helena is located in the Atlantic Ocean, 2,000 kilometers from Africa and 3,500 kilometers from Brazil, with a population of about 5,000 people. Of course, the island became famous because Napoleon was exiled there after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and died on the island in 1821.

In 1732, coffee was first planted on St. Helena Island, brought from Yemen on a ship called Houghton. Although some other introduced plants had failed to cultivate since the 1860s, coffee took root and flourished here.

The island also experienced a coffee improvement movement, where in the mid-1980s, David Henry began working to develop the island's coffee industry with the aim of producing the highest quality coffee. The coffee trees on St. Helena Island are grown entirely under natural conditions, without machinery, without tractors, and even the woody plants cut down to make space for new coffee trees are recycled.

A Global Story Before the 20th Century

In addition to Napoleon, the Atlantic island of St. Helena has another international specialty product, which has become a famous premium brand - "St. Helena Coffee." This fully reflects a globalization story from before the 20th century. The origin of world coffee is Ethiopia, which could be considered a cross-continental hegemony in the Middle Ages. It once crossed the Red Sea to occupy the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, while bringing coffee to Arabia. Yemen cultivated the brand "Mocha," which became popular from then on.

Later, British merchants sailed from Yemen to the Atlantic, bringing coffee beans to St. Helena. Other introduced plants all perished, but only the coffee trees survived. Napoleon was imprisoned there until his death, believing that the only attraction of St. Island was coffee. This "news" spread to Europe and became the best promotional slogan for merchants. Due to the extremely small area and extremely remote location of St. Island, even though there are coffee companies专门代理 on the island now, the brand's demand still far exceeds supply, naturally pushing prices higher continuously. In fact, the taste is said to be just average.

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