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Yeah, pods suck. But hey, it
Yeah, pods suck. But hey, it took me long enough to learn to make decent coffee and invest in decent home coffee making tools. I'm glad to hear the shop owners in Cambridge are talking to each other. There are a lot of shops working at a high level in the Boston area now and more on the way - can't wait for Render's opening in the South End!
White Whine
Talk about the White Whine.
I won't argue the waste, however maybe if they didnt charge 3 bucks for a small coffee, people wouldn't be using kcups. Sorry all the places in this article all over charge for coffee. If you are paying more than 2 bucks for a small coffee, its just too much and you're being over charged.
They have a lot of room to talk about "skimming customers".. 3-4 bucks for a cup of coffee is highway robbery.
Honestly...
I'd rather pay 3-4 bucks for a cup of great coffee sold by local merchants than continuing to put money in the coffers of Starbucks.
ya got me there
Ok that I agree with :) Starbucks is a rip off too :)
It's pretty rare that an
It's pretty rare that an independent coffeehouse actually has coffee worth $3. I used to live in Davis and currently live near Union/Inman, and the only places I'd pay for coffee at that price in that area are Mr. Crepe, The Biscuit, and Bloc Eleven.
Of course, they also come in sub-$3 for a small black coffee, and they leave out the attitude of preachy caffeine pits like 1369 and Diesel.
Bloc 11 and Diesel are owned by the same people
so it's a little surprising that you like one and not the other. Is the coffee, or the pricing, that different between the two?
Coffee is too CHEAP
I am going to catch hell for saying this, but it is absurd that specialty coffee shops generally charge no more than DD, considering the cost of Fair Trade and organic certifications, extra $$ spent training, etc. Most of the shops in this article are very competitively priced and those that are not are offering unique services to a niche market (siphons and the like).
The US coffee market is (chock full'o) nuts. In Tokyo last summer, I was paying 350 yen ($4) for a SIX OUNCE chops regular black coffee. Europe is similar. Not sure how we got so lucky - maybe it's just that we consume so much more coffee.
Overcharged?
Because physical location's, the capital to open it, and the money to pay the employees serving you grows on trees....
Honestly, I'm not above paying $2-$4 for a cup of coffee if the quality is right. Making at home is always cheaper, but that's because there's no overhead.
$.50 in 1960 would be about $3.60 today with inflation. And that's not taking into account a modest increase in the price of coffee as it's become more popular.
But f you want to pay $1.50 for some swill go ahead. This constant race to the bottom is killing everything.
Its highway robberty
Sorry it is. It costs them less than 20 cents to make a cup of coffee. Add a nickle for the cup its in. So 25 cents a cup. (trust me I used to manage a coffee account, its 25 cents a cup for decent coffee, folks)
And you're charging $3.50 for a small cup of coffee? really? Please, No your overhead is so much because all you sell is coffee?!?
Ever notice that coffee is cheaper where they have other food products besides a danish? (and heck, its usually bottomless too!)
Its rare coffee-only shops are still around that don't offer sandwiches (hello Diesel) and aren't a chain. This is why. And the one that are coffee only are in such a high volume traffic area, that they can survive by selling it at not so exorbitant prices..
So again, there's NO reason why, except just to jack the customer because all you sell is coffee or want to pay your employees 12/hr to serve coffee.
Soda is the same way
Always has been, always will be.
Do you complain about the prices of concession at movie theaters? If the theater isn't owned by studio, then 95% of it's revenue is from concession. A large amount of that from it's soda.
And yes, you're right. Where they can make up revenue via other products, they often do.
Personally, I like doing the calculations to see how much I might be getting ripped off. Maybe someone a little older can fill me in, but $0.50 in 1960 sounds about right for a cup, if not a little low. Which in real terms, means a cup of coffee hasn't risen that much, while the value of our dollars has.
Also, no defender of Starbucks, but their coffee typically costs between $1.50-$2 + tax. It's their coffee like, chocolate laced products that cost the most. The stuff you typically don't get from a Keurig. Independent places are probably higher because of their small size, but they usually try to offer an atmosphere people enjoy, and offset the need for pricey coffee with food offerings at all.
Guess I'm just saying coffee really isn't much different then it's always been. It's also not on my list of things I consider highway robbery.
Education, Medical bills, real estate, and that damn skywalk bridge over the grand canyon would be more akin to highway robbery in my view.
Yo anonasquare
If you want to cut overhead, quit using apostrophes and capital letters where they aren't needed!
/beingTHATperson
Ummm
I don't go to the movies for various reasons, but I think 12.50 to go see a movie is ridiculous, and I won't even begin on the concession stand prices. ugh.
And yes Soda is a rip. A 5 gallon box of Syrup from Coke cost 120.00 (Plus fountain rental, filters, and carbonation tanks all rented from Coke). You can fill something like 3,000 1 cup servings off that 1 box of syrup, so it cost as little as 4 cents a cup... Maybe close to a dime if you add in the fountain rental and service contract..
For the record, I'm 35. I could care less what a cup of coffee was in 1960. and I Google'd it. It was about a dime to 15 cents. So that same cup today would cost $.73 cents. This just proves my point. Even if that same cup cost a buck today, $3.50 is still a ton for a SMALL cup of coffee. And to think 99% of the time, they don't even add the cream and sugar for you, so what am I paying for again? Atmosphere? Location? Um No thanks.
Yeah one could argue that coffee (the beans) has gone up a bunch since 1960, but even @ 30 cents a cup in 1960 it still would be only $2.18, still a buck and a quarter cheaper than most boutique coffee shops.
And yes I thin its highway robbery because places charge this much because "they can" and people are stupid and pay it anyways. And yes I agree, its interesting how this stuff is all connected.
Keurig isn't swill
Some pods are nasty or weak, but we use the ones that give us coffee we like. We also buy from the local roaster and use the brewing jig that came with the Keurig.
As for "cutting into business", well, poppycock! The Keurig system is just another coffee making method for the home kitchen. We replaced our old coffee maker, not our occasional trips to Mystic Coffee Roasters or True Grounds. We still use our toys from the shop in East Arlington and plunger pots when camping.
If people are brewing coffee at home, maybe it is because they can't afford $2-4 a day for getting coffee out anymore? That isn't Keurig's fault. That's the economy.
Dunks
$2 a cup, during your break at work 5 days a week, is ~$520 a year just in coffee.
For people who's wages haven't been keeping up with inflation the last 20 years, that's a lot of money to throw away. Historically it wouldn't have been, but as said, were in this race to the bottom.
Companies are paying dreadful wages, so other companies have to cost cut and find ways to offer the cheapest products, which means they have to cost cut their own balance sheets.
It's the wholesale raping of the American economy, with the savings passed to the 1%, the Boards of directors, and the majority shareholders.
it's amazing how much this stuff is all connected, if you bother to look.
The $$ for a Keurig is better
The $$ for a Keurig is better spent on a quality grinder and a hot water boiler (+ a $3 plastic cone). My big problem with the Keurig is that it doesn't heat the water to the proper temperature. Of course, that is a problem with most drip coffeemakers too.
True, except for one big thing
The Keurig is extremely fast and reasonable to taste...and I can sometimes be very picky.
I do like my coffee a little warmer for brewing than it allows for (adjustable temp tops out at 192, where I probably prefer closer to 200). However, I don't like having to keep a large variety of beans in various air-tight canisters all over the kitchen taking up limited space...but I can keep a rack of K-cups and not give up any variety. The grinds are all stored air-tight in the cups and, like Swirly, I have the filter insert if I want to brew something from the roasted bean (OMG, what a perfect name for a coffee shop, "The Roasted Bean"...crap, I'm too late).
So, I don't have a problem with Keurigs. Home coffee makers are horrible for making just one cup at a time. And sure, I could jury rig something together but then I'd have to go back to having tons of extra beans waiting to be used again...or drinking the same coffee for weeks until it's gone.
Plus, if you think Keurigs are bad...try a Flavia sometime.
Flavia...
....worst thing about Flavia is the name.
I actually can't tell much difference. Flavia is vacuum packed, so technically it should be better than the Keurig. But honestly I can't tell the difference--they're both mediocre. Flavia has dozens of varieties available, Keurig has hundreds, it seems. I could get by with either at the office, but neither at hoome.
The solution to one-cup brewing at home: an espresso maker. Problem solved!
You can't tell the difference?
We have Flavia at work, but I have a Keurig at home. The single brand availability of Flavia (Alterra, their own brand) is awful in anything but the Sumatra (the Kenya might be good, but that's about the only one we don't have at work).
At least with Keurig, I can get name brands whose coffee is better than that. Green Mountain and Caribou, depending on what kind of coffee I'm looking for I can even slum a bit with some DD.
By the way, right next to my Keurig is my espresso maker for exactly the reason you mention. Sometimes I gotta do it perfectly when I'm not just looking for a cup'a'joe.
Where?
Where are they charging 3-4 dollars for a small cup of coffee? Are we talking just a regular coffee, or espresso/latte? Because at Simon's and Peet's, I never paid more than $2 for a small cup of plain old coffee, and those places are totally solid. Simon's is just phenomenal, really; I have got to start buying that Barismo coffee, because my God, when I do get a latte, no one else's really compares.
Niche to fill in coffee serving world
By the way, coffee purveyors, there's one particular niche that I find poorly filled as I jump from coffeehouse to cafe to chain. Where is the coffee shop that treats coffees like wines? I'm not necessarily advocating for blending (oh noes!) or anything and I'm not trying to enforce the appellation process or anything either. But so few places will tell you the flavor profiles you should expect, beyond "mild" or "nutty", or WHY you might expect a certain flavor or mouthfeel from a particular coffee.
I walked into my local Starbucks the other day and saw a stack of info cards hanging from the side of their Clover. I pulled them out while waiting for my drink and started reading. It was really interesting stuff about the location the beans were harvested, the type of roasting used for what reason, and ultimately the expected flavor. I asked why they didn't make something like that available to the customer to read about coffee and the barista told me she had thought the same thing.