Going Broke at the Beanery
On a recent episode of HBO???s Entourage, the character Johnny Drama stages a revolt at an espresso bar when the merchant doesn???t honor his ???buy-9-drinks-get-the-10th-free??? card. Ranting and raving amid violent finger-pointing, he reams the guy out for failing to let him pay for his latte with the wallet-sized piece of paper. A tad melodramatic? Yes ??? hence his moniker. But after shelling out three or four bucks for nine drinks in a row, he felt damn well entitled to his free drink. He earned that free latte. Which raises the question, why have coffee drinks become so outlandishly expensive?
It seems all you have to do is add the word ???latte,??? or better yet, ???frappe,??? to the end of a coffee-based beverage, and you can automatically up the price by two or three dollars. Sometimes more. But what???s really going into these drinks? And is it all worth the price?
Let???s break it down:
Every drink must start with the beans. But the beans used at most coffee houses are nothing to write home about ??? you???ll find your standard-issue sack of roast and typically no discernable difference in taste compared to what you can buy in the supermarket and brew at home.
According to a 2002 article in the Chicago Tribune, the actual coffee (aka the beans) only make up for about 10% of the total cost of the beverage when it???s given to you in the cup at a chain like Dunkin??? Donuts. And even when the cost of beans to wholesale buyers decreases, as it did beginning in the late 90???s, much to the detriment of the coffee grower, the cost to the patron at the local Starbucks has only gone up. According to quotecoffee.com, which provides a live update on the cost of coffee, a pound is currently running for 14.41 cents (at press time). So you have to figure that the amount going into your mocha latte is worth only a few pennies from the tip cup.
Then there???s the milk. What???s so expensive about milk? It only costs the coffee shop merchant about $1.99 per gallon, which translates to about a quarter for the amount they pour in your latte. So far, the cost to the shop adds up to the kind of loose change you find buried in the couch cushions.
Flavors. This is where they get you. Every squirt of chocolate syrup, vanilla syrup, hazelnut syrup, raspberry syrup, or other flavor you want to put in your drink can up the price of the drink by a dollar or more.
Whipped cream. Because clearly, no drink would be complete without a spiraling mountain of it on top, right? Or in any case, this is what the average barista will try to persuade you of, with the innocuous yet convincing plea, ???Whipped cream on that???? (said with a tempting glint in the eye). Three squirts from a pressurized can ??? 50 cents more.
Top it off with a dash of cinnamon or a squirt of chocolate (as if you really need that on top of everything else), and suddenly the cashier is ringing up a whopping $4.25. And the cost of ingredients is probably, oh, about $0.37.
According to WetFeet.com, the average cost of a cup of coffee in New York is around $3.30. Yet, we continue to line up in drooling droves, desperate for our daily sugary caffeinated fix. Which, try as I might, just never tastes quite the same when I make it at home. So the coffee shops we worship are starting to seem very much like profit centers. And I have to wonder: am I in the wrong business?
(Hmmm???I can see the Kate???s Caf?? shingle already???)
