Dancing Goats Coffee (formerly Batdorf and Bronson) is a top-end premium coffee roaster and retailer that is good enough so that you can ignore this Examiner's usual recommendations about locally roasted coffee. Dancing Goats always delivers quickly, providing excellent quality coffee at the peak of its freshness.
They also produce and distribute some of the finest coffees available, and right about now, around the Christmas and Thanksgiving holidays each year, they are able to offer the absolutely astounding Panama Esmeralda Caballeriza, from Hacienda La Esmeralda in Western Panama, one of the finest coffees in the world. The beans are grown in ideal conditions in a small valley in this relatively remote part of Central America that is cooler than other areas in the region. Combining that with the Geisha varietal of coffee beans, the growers have been able to produce an outstanding coffee that has won first place in every competition it has entered! There's a reason: simply put, the coffee from La Hacienda Esmeralda in Panama is the second most expensive coffee in the world, a distant second only to Kopi Luwak, which will be featured in an upcoming article.
The Dancing Goats website describes the flavor profile of this amazing coffee as leading with sweet currant and sour cherry flavors that blend with hints of sweet licorice while the deep red fruit notes linger in the cup. The coffee is intensely aromatic and carries a "luscious, heavy body" and "astonishing cup quality." Last year, the author purchased some of this coffee as a Christmas gift for his brother, a real coffee snob, and both of them were absolutely floored by it in every preparation method they tried. It's simply stunning.
If you want to get your hands on some of this almost unbelievable coffee, then you should act quickly. Dancing Goats is only able to secure a micro-lot of the coffee due to its limited availability and high demand by gourmands in the coffee industry. Visit the Dancing Goats: Panama Esmeralda Special page and place an order soon. They will only be roasting and distributing it once more this year, on December 14, 2009. It will set you back almost $50 for 12 oz. of beans, but as a special holidays treat to yourself or a coffee-loving loved one, it is very, very hard to beat as a gift!
If you read this story too late to use it this year, bookmark this article and Dancing Goats Coffee and be sure to get the jump on it next year. Signing up for the Dancing Goats e-newsletter from their website will get you the announcement as soon as they start roasting it in November.
Local note: Dancing Goats coffees (formerly Batdorf and Bronson) are roasted in two locations, one of which is in Atlanta, so this product can be considered regional as the Southeast is served by the Atlanta roastery. Furthermore, their coffees have been a feature at Knoxville's original French gourmet restaurant, The Orangery, due to their outstanding quality. Online orders are probably the easiest way to bring some of this top-shelf coffee into the Tennessee Valley, though.
For more great recipes and cooking ideas, follow the Knoxville Gourmet Food Examiner by subcribing at the top of the page. You can also read more on his personal cooking blog: The Untrained Gourmet.
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