The most expensive cup of coffee at San Francisco café the Wild Fox costs $105.
Mario Cortez / S.F. Chronicle
In recent years, Bay Area cafés have made headlines with $16 coffees, $20 flavor-blasted cups and $75 pours. Now, a downtown San Francisco shop has reached what appears to be a new high water mark: a single cup of coffee for $105.
The luxurious brew is on offer at the Wild Fox, a Japanese-inspired café at 123 Battery St. For the triple-digit cup, bar staff use beans grown in southeastern Brazil and roasted in Tokyo by Glitch Coffee, a revered and influential coffee roaster.
Rich Lee and Liza Otanes, the husband-and-wife team behind local shop Spro Coffee Lab, and Tsubasa Onozaki, formerly a chef at Liholiho Yacht Club, opened the Wild Fox in late 2025. Lee said one of his goals is to bring the highest of high-grade coffees to customers. The café’s other coffee offerings include regular drip ($4.75); espresso drinks, such as cortados ($5.75); and pourovers (which start at $9), all made with premium beans.
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“These coffees are grown for competition, not as commodities,” Lee said. “The farmers take pride in setting a new benchmark in specialty coffee.”
Specialty coffee growers often grow small lots specifically for prestigious competitions, such as the World Barista Championships or Cup of Excellence. To wow judges, baristas competing at these events frequently use rare varietals or novel processing techniques with distinct flavors.
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The Wild Fox’s $105 coffee was grown at Brazil’s Minas Gerais state and harvested in 2024. The coffee cherries were fermented in oxygen-deprived tanks for 72 hours, a method known as anaerobic processing, which can amplify sweetness and create flavors akin to fruit liqueurs or jams. Judges at Cup of Excellence gave it a 93.14 score, making it the winning Brazilian coffee that year.
A pour of the Wild Fox’s Cup of Excellence Brazil coffee.
Mario Cortez / S.F. Chronicle
Coffees at this astronomical price range aren’t completely unheard of: Dubai’s Julith Coffee offers a cup of Panamanian coffee for almost $1,000. In the U.S., Klatch Coffee, based in Southern California, has offered a coffee, also from Panama, that has been dubbed “the world’s most expensive” multiple times, with its 2019 auction price topping $1,000 per pound.
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It is somewhat unclear what accounts for Glitch’s pricing. Cup of Excellence 2024 auction results show that Glitch purchased 90 kilograms (198.4 pounds) of the coffee for $20,653.44, or roughly $104 per pound. Each 12-ounce cup uses 23 grams of coffee. Lee did not say how much he paid for the coffee, but estimated that, if sold at cost, one cup would be “easily over $80.” Glitch did not respond to requests for comment.
The coffee caught Lee’s eye as he was planning to open the Wild Fox last year. “You want to be able to offer coffees that no other shop can offer,” said Lee, who bought 2 kilograms from Glitch.
Because some coffees’ peak flavor emerges roughly two to three weeks after roast, the Wild Fox freezes its coffees to preserve them for as long as it takes to sell out. Grinding and brewing beans straight from the freezer also produces a sweeter cup with more pronounced acidity, Lee said.
Lee said his business has sold seven of the $105 cups since the shop opened in December. A barista, who recoiled when hearing our order, said someone had most recently ordered it roughly two weeks ago.
Before brewing, staff warm up a ceramic Hario Switch dripper and carafes with hot water. The Switch allows for precise control of the water’s flow rate through the coffee. Adjusting that delivers “a very juicy sweetness and pleasant acidity,” Lee said.
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This reporter found the resulting cup to have a balanced, citrus-like acidity, raisin-y sweetness and a bitter touch akin to an amaro. As it cooled down, the sweet notes matured and the citrus developed into a grapefruit candy tone.
Lee understands that even the most die-hard coffee enthusiasts might scoff at $105 for a cup, but he hopes that anyone looking to treat themselves might opt for the Wild Fox’s $11 Guatemalan or $16 Colombian pourover.
“Maybe you think, ‘This is insane,’” Lee said. “Then you go home and think about it, tell a friend and remember it. That’s what we’re trying to do here.”