Price of a Coffee.

Tesco do a wide variety of packs of 227g / 250g filter coffee for under €4. Each pack lasts me a week and makes 2.5 pints of coffee a day. That's about 50c a day or 20c for the amount you'd get in a coffee shop cup.

I only buy coffee from a coffee shop if I'm arranging to meet up with someone or a takeaway if I have a long journey ahead. In those situations, I'm happy to pay the extra. Otherwise €3.80 (=€4 - 20c) is a lot to be paying someone else to routinely make you coffee, and a waste of time to be standing around waiting for it.

I'd like stuff to be cheaper too but unfortunately for us both there's enough people willing to spend more than we're going to lose out

I think there's a bit of weird logic with spending money on coffee or eating out or general "luxury" items

Normally you're looking for the best value in the thing you want so you seek the best balance of quality versus price

If this was always true then everyone would drink instant coffee and eat frozen pizzas

However, people want the experience of treating themselves to going out and having something they like prepared for them. Spending more money kind of feeds into this, if it was cheap then it wouldn't be a luxury

So there's now a sort of bizarre incentive to spend more instead of seeking value. This is the same reason pubs can upwards of €15 for a cocktail that probably costs €3 to make at home, just because the barkeeper can do some cool tricks flipping the bottle over and catching it

You're right that it's hard to justify €5 for a coffee, but that's because you aren't just buying a coffee, you're buying the experience of going to the shop and having a coffee made for you

Does that make it worth it? Probably not most of the time, but sometimes people just want to get out and buy themselves something nice

There's a coffee shop round every corner.

Must be goldmines if they're all surviving.

Oh I raise you Swiss coffee prices! Insane

😂

Well no-one is shouting at me yet so I guess there's a few coffee drinkers quietly nodding their heads

I agree on barista coffee, they tend to use dark roast coffee which has a much stronger taste

I prefer a medium roast and I drink mochas which is basically coffee for people who don't like strong coffee. The taste is also influenced pretty heavily by the grind and tamping, and it's easier to take your time and get it right at home.

Not saying I'm some maverick home barista, I'm actually surprised I haven't been assassinated by the Italian special forces. But in general it's nice to take your time at something and see it pay off

So I don't really like the coffee from most shops anyway, but it is a nice treat when I'm out and want my fix

Actually, on the topic of beer, I had a good laugh at a clip from the new season of King of the Hill where Hank and Bobby are arguing over craft beer. Hank says something like

"I've been drinking beer for 40 years and at no point did I think it needed to be fruitier"

I tend to enjoy trying the odd new craft beer or cider, but again I tend to drift back to my regular ciders when I'm out since I just want something familiar and consistent

What ciders are you drinking when you’re out? Is it something that’s only 35% apple juice?

Orchard Thieves, so probably more like 5% apple juice and the rest is sugar 😂

I'll admit its a struggle to find craft ciders in most pubs near me, generally they just have the main brands on draft and maybe some bottles of something in the fridge

So if I'm feeling crafty I need to put my beer drinking hat on. I tend to not drink more than 1 or 2, which is handy for self limiting

I've actually gotten quite partial to whiskey sours over the past year. I don't like handing over €12-15 in a pub for one though so they tend to be a home drink

Also the lemon juice means it counts as a fruit portion, so I should drink more whiskey sours to get my 5 a day 😁

Have you figured out what the extra shot means yet?

I think people are willing to take the hit for an coffee at the moment because they enjoy it and it's seen as something that isn't very expensive but it adds up of you have one every day.

was at the avoca mill recently and they have very sneakily started using smaller cups. Talk about a rip off

That's new.

You could look at it the other way and say they’re giving you a discount on your takeaway.

Providing space to sit is a major overhead, I don’t see any issue with that tbh.