When they isolated the taller Geishas and planted more at a slightly higher altitude for the 2003 to 2004 season, the coffee really blossomed, Daniel says. In 2004, La Esmeralda Special swept the intense Best of Panama and Rainforest Alliance cupping competitions—at which the few dozen entrants with the best aroma, sweetness, mouthfeel, flavor, aftertaste, and balance are identified—and set the first of its auction records with an online price of $21 a pound. “This is a flavor that had not been found in the Americas,” Daniel says. It can now be found at high-end online retailers and some of the best coffeehouses in the U.S. and Canada.

At a basic level, industry insiders are increasingly defining well-regarded specialty coffees by what they are not: blended or—Sacre bleu!—French roasted. Jeff Taylor, co-owner of PT’s Coffee Roasting Co., in Topeka, Kansas, says top buyers, wholesalers, and retailers are more interested in single-origin coffees and lighter roasts that highlight a bean’s best features.

Like a vineyard’s grand reserve wine, the finest coffee beans are often found in microlots, or small subsets of farms like Hacienda La Esmeralda, where, as Taylor puts it, “all of the stars align.” In the partial shade of the higher-elevation lot, Esmeralda’s Geisha trees may not be models of productivity, but the slower cycles let them pack more sugars and oils into their beans and turn heads in coffee competitions.

Coffee enthusiasts also make comparisons with the wine industry’s success in marketing nuanced vintages; some boast that chemists have identified about 850 natural compounds contributing to the flavor of roasted coffee—many more than in a classic Bordeaux. An Ethiopian coffee called Biloya Selection One is acclaimed by PT’s Coffee for its “syrupy pineapple sweetness that’s supported with deep blueberry overtones,” while an offering from Panama’s Bambito Estate is lauded by Groundwork Coffee Co., a Los Angeles firm, for its “juicy, apple-cider-like texture and sweetness that pairs decadently with tones of dark chocolate, pepper, and clove.”

On a leafy side street in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, other discoveries are showcased at Café Grumpy, where cheerful baristas preside over steady sales of individually brewed, single-origin coffees and espressos. Coffeehouse co-owner Caroline Bell says she secured a bag of the prized Esmeralda beans before May’s recordbreaking auction, through a roaster who had a direct relationship with the farm. A 16-ounce cup of the famous java was the most expensive item on her August menu and, at $8, was far closer to what nearby restaurants were charging for a glass of pinot noir.

With its notes of Italian bergamot, orange rind, lavender, and jasmine, the coffee was worth every cent, according to Café Grumpy barista Jay Murdock. Customers apparently agreed, snapping up about 80 pounds of the café’s 100-pound allotment before Labor Day. (The café is saving the rest for the holidays.) Bell says that ultra-discriminating coffee drinkers are akin to those who shop at farmers markets:  It’s the difference between buying waxy tomatoes in a supermarket and springing for a Brandywine heirloom cultivar. Or perhaps it’s the difference between the aroma of a boxed wine and the toast-and-cherry-tinged nose of a ’95 Shafer cabernet sauvignon.