The article also points out that novelty was a big factor. I'd happily pay $20 to try the coffee from California. I might even pay $55 for a cup of that Klutsch coffee mentioned. Only once though. The coffee can be as good as it once, even if I was swimming in money I'd rather donate the money than regularly spend $20/cup.

> Relative to all of the other things we're willing to spend $18 on — like a glass of wine or small-batch bourbon — investing in the memorable flavor experience of a great cup of coffee is worth it.

This quote further in the article captures the reason why someone might spend more. Producing good coffee is actually more expensive than the market would lead you to believe. For some people drinking good coffee is exactly like experiencing a fine wine.

Given what I’ve learned about fraud in the wine world, the nature of individual taste perception, and the inflated value of wine... I’m sure it is entirely similar.

Useful references: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_fraud

In contrast coffee in general is vastly underpriced. In a shop you are lonely going to pay a premium but beans are generally produced by an underpaid labour market that allows for coffee to maintain such a low value.

So, it’s like most clothing, and consumer electronics, jewelry, and so on?

Think wine is bad .. wait until you look at the olive oil business!

Oh yeah, the mafia is deep in that one too. The best advice I’ve gotten for olive oil, coffee, wine, beer, and chocolate is to satisfy your palette. If you like it, great! It doesn’t really matter if a group of “experts” disagrees, although it can be helpful to try a wide spectrum at first.

I don't think it is. I don't give a flying fuck about coffee or food or wine or any of that shit, but I can genuinely taste differences in coffee. I'd be surprised if you couldn't.

There's a little roaster in St Lawrence Market where I go and I pickup random bags of whatever coffees for fun, and they are extremely different.

Wine I've never been able to discern. I don't think coffee is in the same league at all.

I still wouldn't pay $18 but I'm sure some would.

That said the best coffee near me is in the little market and it's both cheaper and vastly better than star bucks, I go there after Chess Club on a Saturday and review the games I just played, it's so good I would pay £5 (~$7.5) for that one cup a week because it's an experience not the caffeine, the rest of the time it's LIDL's Columbian instant (which is a damn fine instant).

>For some people drinking good coffee is exactly like experiencing a fine wine.

I would phrase it differently.

Americans have become conditioned to accept high prices for drinks. For lots of reasons, but mostly because they are real money makers in almost every place that sells any sort of drink.

I mean, it costs up to $6 for a bottle of kombucha, and I know people who go through a couple of those a day. The next logical step is a $20 coffee.

Meanwhile in Europe you can get a good espresso for a euro.

That's obviously a false extrapolation on cultures.

In Paris you're not spending one euro on espresso typically. It's going to be closer to 2.50 to 3 euros. Adjust that to dollars, you get more like $3 to $3.70, adjust for income differences you get $5 to $6 (US incomes are far higher than French incomes, and especially if we're comparing eg NYC vs Paris).

https://francetravelplanner.com/go/paris/shop/costs.html

Americans have not been conditioned to accept high prices for drinks. When was the last time you wandered through Walmart's beverages section? Their grocery section has half an aisle for inexpensive coffee and tea products, and then another half aisle for inexpensive soda products. As another example, cases of water at Walmart go for $4 for a brand label pack of 24 to 32 500ml bottles, or $0.13 to $0.17 per unit. If anything, most Americans are conditioned to expect to pay very cheap prices for purchased beverages. That's why Starbucks is considered expensive to the average person.

A small group of high income Americans find it acceptable to spend what is a trivial sum for them, on such product experiences.

The notion that many Americans are spending $15-$20 on daily beverages, is laughable. The median income is $30,000. You want me to believe a lot of people are spending $7,000 annually on beverages? Yeah right.

It's equivalent to saying: in the US you can buy a vast array of great wines for $10 to $20, while in France people are paying $140 for wine.

Sure, some people in France are. It'd be false to pretend a large number of people in France are doing that regularly. Few Americans are actually spending outsized sums of money on beverages.

In Rome, I bought 1.20 euro for a espresso, and 2.0 for a cappuccino, right smack in the middle of the city near the train station.

In Albania, it is the 0.80 for a medium-good espresso (Lavazza or Illy), and 1.20 to 1.50 for a cappuccino.

In Barcelona, a glass of wine varied between 2.5. and 3 euros. I never paid more than that. In the US? 12-15 (In NYC at least).

Also, in NYC, you can't buy a bottle of water for $1, in most places, while in supermarkets in Spain was about 0.50 or 0.60

So, yeah, Americans in general pay twice as much for beverages.

NYC unfairly keeps large grocers such as Walmart out of the city. You can order 40 water bottle packs from Costco using Instacart for 3.69 in NYC [1]. NYC Bodegas are not competitive, it is unfortunate the city allows the poor to be taken advantage of and forced to shop at such uncompetitively priced stores.

[1] https://www.instacart.com/store/items/item_128043194

How does it keep them out?

I'm not familiar with NYC, but typical techniques involve refusing to issue business or construction permits, or imposing untenable restrictions.

Lol in the Midwest a glass of wine will run you $4-6 and an espresso around $2-3. Of course you'd pick the highest cost region.

I didn't pick the lowest cost regions in Italy or Spain either. I am comparing cities vs. cities and not cities vs. middle of nowhere. Both Rome and Barcelona are world class cities. (Barcelona the more modern one). The prices are similar in Berlin and many other cities in Europe expect in Scandinavian countries and London.

There are places where things are even cheaper (especially in Souther Italy), where 3 euros will get you a whole bottle of wine.

While NYC is expensive, is it not much more than either San Francisco or Boston. (maybe a 5% difference, but not 2x).

Just saying

Minneapolis/St Paul metro isn't the middle of no where. It's almost 4 million people... We have over 80 breweries and a 1 billion dollar sports stadium where the super bowl was held this year. I could go on.

You can’t compare prices in NYC and extrapolate that to the rest of the country - it’s the most expensive place for pretty much everything.

SF and Boston are close enough to NYC:

Consumer Prices in San Francisco, CA are 1.16% lower than in New York, Consumer Prices in Boston, MA are 12.87% lower than in New York, NY

"US incomes are far higher than French incomes, and especially if we're comparing eg NYC vs Paris"

A common assumption that americans get wrong: this isn't the case. (Taxes might affect things a bit, but that doesn't take into account the healthcare and retirement situation.)

Ughh.

The mythical 1-euro coffee persists due to cultural reasons. But also due to very depressed purchasing power in places in Greece, Italy etc

Go to any capital or premium tourist location, and u too will discover the pleasures of 5euro coffee.

> Meanwhile in Europe you can get a good espresso for a euro.

Even if this is still true, you're talking about different things than what most Americans purchase. Very few Americans purchase the single shot of espresso, but last I checked Starbucks has it for ~$1.50.

What many Americans consider coffee is really a milkshake flavored with a couple of shots of espresso. Then there is the size issue. If I walked into a cafe in Europe and wanted a grande sized latte it would end up being very similar in price to Starbucks (2 espresso shots and basically a glass of milk).

I'm not sure where you've gotten a latte, but I haven't noticed a significant difference between a latte from a US coffeeshop (and I've been to various across several states and regions) and a latte in Spain, for instance.

I haven't been to Starbucks recently, so I can't comment on their products.

The €1 coffee is possibly more prevalent across the border in Portugal.

They charge extra for milk, as black coffee is typically drunk as a side dish to iconic pasteis.

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/08/da/d6/7b/...

While visiting LA I went to a farmers market. I paid $11 for a single cup of coffee that I was promised would blow my socks off. Bourbon barrel roasted something.

It was _good_ and the novelty was nice, but I probably wouldn't choose to do it again. Instead I just do my own pourovers at home for ~$0.30 each and add my own flavors at brew time (e.g. ground cinnamon sticks.)

I can't say much though, I grudgingly support my wife's Starbucks habit at $5/drink and just a few years ago I found that just as ridiculous.

“I can't say much though, I grudgingly support my wife's Starbucks habit at $5/drink and just a few years ago I found that just as ridiculous.”

Well, in this case what you’re paying for is not the coffee per se.

I agree with the sentiment. I am willing to pay more for my beans, but brew my own coffee at home and at working using a good burr grinder and an Aeropress. The lower temperature and higher pressure method makes such a smooth cup without bitterness that you can actually start tasting the coffee. I like the analogy of the camera-- you can buy a great lense, but if your hand shakes then the picture won't come out well.

Same for me. I once visited a coffee farm at Kona: the coffee was nice, but not that special. (For one thing, the coffee was in thermal carafes, with small paper cups next to it. Think Trader Joe's.)

I feel how the coffee is prepared matters more than where it is from. Or maybe I lack the taste buds to feel it properly. Oh well.

Bean source, processing, roasting profile, freshness, grind, temperature, and brewing method all play a part in making a good cup of coffee.

And of course taste is subjective so it's hard to get an absolute answer here. Kona coffee is likely overpriced and overhyped. In my opinion there's a diminishing return on coffee taste past a certain point. I haven't seen any indications that the really expensive coffees' tastes are proportional to the price, it's just that demand is high because they're famous in some way (Kona, Blue Mountain, Kopi Luwak)

For a real eye opener of "bean origin affects flavor", try some Ethiopian Yirgacheffe beans from a reputable roaster. You should get strong blueberry notes from the coffee, quite different from other regions' coffees. It'll be more expensive than a bag of whatever supermarket coffee, but there's a clear distinction in taste. Whether you like that taste is entirely another thing, but drink whatever tastes good to you!

People want to pay more for coffee than they currently pay. I realized this after seeing the popularity of Philz Coffee. Only drip coffee, for about $4 a cup, much longer wait than sbux and lines out the door.

Philz was the first place where I could actually taste the difference in flavors between the different beans. I think it’s because they don’t burn their beans like Starbucks does. They also use heavy cooking cream rather than half and half. I am no coffee snob, but Starbucks coffee really is the lowest common denominator at this point, probably due to the scale they have to operate at.

They are making an effort to prove they can do decent coffee at Starbucks Reserve apparently. One just opened here in Redwood City that I've been meaning to try out. I think you pay more for the experience, but regardless, it is good to see Starbucks get back to their roots in some form.

It’s lowest common denominator because it is so common. If there were only a handful of Starbucks it would still be highly sought after. Now, you can’t turn a corner without seeing Starbucks.

Same thing happened to Godiva.

No, I don’t meant it as an issue of coolness - I mean that Starbucks needs to provide a consistent flavor to their customers at thousands and thousands of locations. My theory is that only way to do that for them is to burn their coffee beans and then drown it in syrup and milk, so the customer getting “extra tall vanilla latte” gets the same taste at any location from Alaska to Florida.

Compare it to coffee at Noah’s Bagels or Tim Hortons. Those are large chains too. Tastes vary, but I think if you take a plain black coffee from each of the three, Starbucks will still come out on bottom.

A sociologist would point you at social stratification theory.

I’ve got a photo of a cafe in Venice selling coffee for 9 euros if you sit down. That was 10 years ago too. I didn’t sit down.

Well but that’s 8 euros for chair rental and 1 Euro for the coffee (probably what you’d pay for an espresso to go at the bar)