Is Your Morning Caffeine Fix About to Get Cheaper?

Conba

Atlantic Dawn

A couple of storms will soon rise the price.

J_E

Do the trendy Dublin joints have the capacity to buck the €3 latte trend? I don't feel hopeful... The pricing of coffee in some places is getting ridiculous. €1 extra for sprinkling a bit of chocolate on top and people just pay up.

Nexarz

The type of coffee they are talking about in the video is the bog standard supermarket or Italian roasts. Specialty Coffee beans are nowhere near that cheap.

Cafes that use non-specialty beans are starting to pull the piss on coffee prices yes but there are cafes that use high quality coffee and its not really fair to compare the cafes that use the Italian roasts to specialty joints like 3fe or CoffeeAngel. They usually pay much more their coffee beans so charging 3.50 for a cup of coffee is fair.

It's like comparing Fast Food and Fine Dining.

meeeeh

It's funny how the most coffee snobbery is found in the countries with least of coffee tradition. Some Italian roasts are perfectly fine and can't be compared to slop sold in petrol stations. Yes I get it , good coffee can be only sourced directly from a farmer with one field and three goats or as a second option bought from a internet coffee supplier in a country with long coffee roasting tradition like UK.

I think one of Irish Times food critics once wrote that artisan coffee must taste better drank through beard and I think she might be right.

Mr Magnolia

meeeeh wrote: »

It's funny how the most coffee snobbery is found in the countries with least of coffee tradition. Some Italian roasts are perfectly fine and can't be compared to slop sold in petrol stations. Yes I get it , good coffee can be only sourced directly from a farmer with one field and three goats or as a second option bought from a internet coffee supplier in a country with long coffee roasting tradition like UK.

I've never heard of an Italian roast. Most of the rest of your post makes little sense to me.

If snobbery is knowing what the difference is between a burnt bean from the generic shops compared to a shop that's prepared to source beans that they think the customer will enjoy and then treat the coffee with the respect it deserves from bean to cup then there are far more snobbish countries than Ireland.

I think one of Irish Times food critics once wrote that artisan coffee must taste better drank through beard and I think she might be right.

You should check out Ernie Whalley's ramblings on the topic. I've bumped into him at a cupping session or two. He's also a Times columnist, he knows his coffee and not a beard in sight. I have yet to see any wild generalisations from him though.

meeeeh

You do know that The Sunday Times and Irish Times are not the same thing?

I was responding to previous poster who was used term Italian roasts and whose post you thanked so I would assume you knew what he meant. Or is your understanding limited to how much you like a point that is being made? I drank some very good Illy espressos and I drank some very bad Has Bean coffee. Just because something is individually sourced it doesn't mean it's good. I know there are places who offer very good artisan coffee, there are also places where you can get good mass produced coffee (although not that common in Ireland) and comparing all of them to fast food outlets is just snobbery.

Anyway to answer OP's question, I doubt it. Milk doesn't get cheaper every time price paid to farmers gets .lower.

Nexarz

It isn't snobbery. I'm explaining coffee is much more than a simple commodity.

Coffee is a fruit with different varieties and flavours like grapes, peppers, potatoes, apples etc. and it's seasonal. Look at wine, there are lots of different wines with different flavours, not just 'Wine'. Same with milk, not every cow in the world produces the same tasting milk.

Coffee is the same. There are thousands of varieties of coffee that have their own individual flavours. You're bound to have some coffee that doesn't quite match your palate but that same coffee could taste amazing to someone else.

Plus, You said it yourself, there are places you can get a good cup and places you can get a bad cup. It also depends on how the person brewing your cup of coffee treats it. If they don't really give a **** about making coffee, chances are, it's not gonna be amazing.

You're right, we don't have a history of coffee culture. But that does not mean we cannot better our knowledge of coffee and improve our cup of coffee more than the Italians.

newacc2015

meeeeh wrote: »

It's funny how the most coffee snobbery is found in the countries with least of coffee tradition. Some Italian roasts are perfectly fine and can't be compared to slop sold in petrol stations. Yes I get it , good coffee can be only sourced directly from a farmer with one field and three goats or as a second option bought from a internet coffee supplier in a country with long coffee roasting tradition like UK.

I think one of Irish Times food critics once wrote that artisan coffee must taste better drank through beard and I think she might be right.

I find countries with least experience with a certain type of food and drink, often produce the best produce. Places with a "heritage" of producing a certain product are rigid when it comes to new techniques. Look at Ireland beers. Guinness have producing stout here for over 250 years. But it is only in recent year craft brewers have produced beer that is actually nice to nice. They stopped producing stout the old boring rigid way and some craft stout are amazing.

New world wine is often superior to old wine. Experience of a produce does not equal higher quality.

J_E

You can pontificate on it all you want...the likes of an espresso costing €2.50 and mocha costing €3.50 is frankly, ridiculous. There are few places that can make coffee decent enough to remotely justify the price. As soon as one raises it, the others follow. It's not as bad as popcorn but at the rate it's going each year it's becoming more and more uncomfortable to buy coffee out. Getting pretty fed up of it. Enough of this justification over the constant price hikes. You rarely see this outside the snobbish Dublin scenes.

newacc2015

J_E wrote: »

You can pontificate on it all you want...the likes of an espresso costing €2.50 and mocha costing €3.50 is frankly, ridiculous. There are few places that can make coffee decent enough to remotely justify the price. As soon as one raises it, the others follow. It's not as bad as popcorn but at the rate it's going each year it's becoming more and more uncomfortable to buy coffee out. Getting pretty fed up of it. Enough of this justification over the constant price hikes. You rarely see this outside the snobbish Dublin scenes.

Look at what makes that €2.50 espresso. 9% of that goes to Revenue immediately. So the coffee shop gets to keep €2.28. Out of that they have to pay rent which is huge in Dublin. You are talking probably around €100k to €150k in a prime location. Then you add rates which is about 20% of the rent p.a. You add some of the highest wages in Europe plus employers PRSI. You will quickly see most of that coffee is going to rent, wages and taxes.

Whereas you can get a unit in Galway or Cork for a fifth of the rent or less. Coffee is expensive in Dublin, as rent/rates are huge. You just dont have those rents outside of Dublin.

You can look up the rents on myhome.ie for commerical premises. I did and seen one basic unit in Georges Street is being sold with a potential hike of €5k pa over the next 4 years. There rent hike of €20k is higher than most retail units annual rents outside of Dublin

J_E

You can't justify espresso at €2.50...not in the current environment of Irish cafes. There are places in the heart of the city selling lattes as low as €2 from proper espresso machines.

adrian522

You actually can. €2 to €2.50 I'd happily pay for good espresso. Unfortunately most places don't have good espresso, or properly trained staff or well maintained equipment or high quality coffee beans. But if they had all that €2.50 wouldn't be extortionate at all.

meeeeh

Would we stop with this quality beans nonsense. Even if you don't buy on commodity market (and coffee is a commodity) and go direct to the producer (as do Illy and Starbucks btw) you are buying in a third world country. It's not like wine which is mostly grown in first world and some parts of South America and SAR, the cost of raw produce is minimal in comparison to other cost. Even for good quality beans.

That is why I don't think coffee will be cheaper, the cost of raw produce is minimal in comparison to other costs.

adrian522

No we can't because it's not nonsense, good quality beans will cost more than low quality mass produced beans. The process is very labor intensive and as such will incur a higher price.

meeeeh

So how much more? If you take 10 Stg for 250g of coffee which should get you nice selection on Has Bean. And you get about 16 portions of 15g coffees out of that the cost of that is about 60p. We can easily say that 30 Pence of that are transport cost margins and roasting, you are left with about 30 Pence for raw produce (probably less than that). No self respecting cafe buys stuff at that price, so the bean portion of that would cost less. So tell me how important is the actual bean in final price of coffee you pay in the cafe? No matter how labour intensive it is.

adrian522

It's pretty important, you can get 4KG of beans for €31 here:

http://www.discountcoffee.ie/coffee/coffee-beans/coffee-beans-cases

As you say a what we might consider high quality beans would cost around €150 for that amount.

Obviously a cafe can source both cheaper than I can but it goes to show the difference in price between good and bad quality bean. I fail to see how that would not be reflected in price/profit margin of the end product.

J_E

You could equate that with milk but it doesn't add up. Don't even get me started on the spoonful of cocoa powder costing €1 more in some places. This argument only works if all coffee houses are buying expensive beans - they simply aren't and the price is just imitating the high end and trickling down, that is what is infuriating

meeeeh

@Adrian
I checked the quantity of coffee for espresso needed is 7g. Between 4kg of 31e and 150 Euro coffee the difference amounts to 20 cent per portion. However the standard of coffee in cafes should be usually around Lavazza range which in your link starts at about 60 Euro. So you are looking at about 16 cent or less per coffee.

adrian522

meeeeh wrote: »

@Adrian
I checked the quantity of coffee for espresso needed is 7g. Between 4kg of 31e and 150 Euro coffee the difference amounts to 20 cent per portion. However the standard of coffee in cafes should be usually around Lavazza range which in your link starts at about 60 Euro. So you are looking at about 16 cent or less per coffee.

I'd use 18g per espresso to be honest, maybe 17 but not less than that.

meeeeh

That is the amount for a double according to what I have seen. I'm not overly fussed about quantity because we use the bean to cup machine. Coffee could be better but it still beats Starbucks hands down.

Nexarz

meeeeh wrote: »

@Adrian
I checked the quantity of coffee for espresso needed is 7g. Between 4kg of 31e and 150 Euro coffee the difference amounts to 20 cent per portion. However the standard of coffee in cafes should be usually around Lavazza range which in your link starts at about 60 Euro. So you are looking at about 16 cent or less per coffee.

Its around 18g for 37mls of espresso is what I see in cafes. The Lavazza cafes have beans which are much cheaper than specialty roasters. Lavazza cafes usually par around 18e for 1kg of beans, specialty roasters are around 28e per 1kg. You would also find that specialty cafes would spend more getting better quality equipment. Lavazza standard cafe's can use machines around 2k to 5k whereas higher quality espresso machines can be up to 14k ( VA Black Eagle). Then we can look volume. It is much quicker to make a lavazza standard cup of coffee than a precise cup from specialty beans. Lavazza beans are much more forgiving and much easier to make a decent cup than specialty beans because of the roast profiles. With a lower limit of how many cups you can make your margins go down again.

If you take all these factors into consideration, Specialty cafes charging 2.50 for an espresso (which is usually ~37mls / double shot) is very reasonable.
Its the cafes that are Lavazza-esque that are overcharging imo.

meeeeh

That is first menu I found and there is no 2.50 euro coffee. While I think there is space for some sort of price disparity for more expensive coffee normal, the actual coffee is very small part of it.
https://www.3fe.com/cafe/

In the end you can charge as much as you want for coffee but don't be me that the coffee part is the difference in the price.

Btw why the obsession with double espressos in this part of the world? Surely single is enough (an I say that as someone who is trying to cut down from 5+ single espressos per day.

J_E

meeeeh wrote: »

That is first menu I found and there is no 2.50 euro coffee. While I think there is space for some sort of price disparity for more expensive coffee normal, the actual coffee is very small part of it.
https://www.3fe.com/cafe/

In the end you can charge as much as you want for coffee but don't be me that the coffee part is the difference in the price.

Btw why the obsession with double espressos in this part of the world? Surely single is enough (an I say that as someone who is trying to cut down from 5+ single espressos per day.

I think it has just been the case where espressos have not been as strong in places and it gets lost in the milk - it just caught on from there. You'll notice it in some cafes more than others. Seems to vary from place to place, again another example of some price-gouging when places are charging the same as other places and only using single shots in their coffees.

Regarding 3fe, their price for an americano at €3.50 is incredulous, and a small one no less, but this is also the place that does 'water tasting'. I get it, they take their craft seriously, but I have heard several times of customers having the kind of experience that you see in a 'hipster coffee shop' parody, where they have been rudely dealt with, and I have no time for places that actively put people off new coffee experiences and seem to sell on 'American cool' more than an overall enjoyable cafe experience. I still wonder why people kid themselves that it's worth that kind of money. There are far more places in Dublin producing great coffee without trying to make you feel small and having uncomfortable furniture. I also have this gripe with Brother Hubbard. Well, most places around that area that Hatin Lovin' Dublin would vouch for, really.

(weee, rant over)

jive

Just clicked the 3fe site and had a look at the food menu... forget about the price of coffee, they're charging €10 for soup!

No amount of high rates can justify that. I need to lay down.

J_E

It's the cafe equivalent of a snobby bistro. Good food/drink (probably - there's no doubting the bean quality) but outrageous and over-marketed and lapped up by the new wave of generic trendy Dublin that is as 'unique' as every other city in the world, I hate that aspect of it. I'd much rather a nice soft seat and a staff who are more willing to have a chat with a customer than rattle off extraction time and origin of their coffee and not seeing you off with the simplest of 'thank you's.

newacc2015

J_E wrote: »

You can't justify espresso at €2.50...not in the current environment of Irish cafes. There are places in the heart of the city selling lattes as low as €2 from proper espresso machines.

But you have ignored all the costs that make up that €2.50 coffee. It is not as simply as 20 cents for the coffee and €2.30 pure profit for the greedy hipster owner who is just an excellent marketer. I dont know if you are from Dublin or not. But rent is generally the reason why everything is more expensive in Dublin than say Carlow. You have completely ignored the various costs that make a coffee "overpriced".

BTW if that €2 place is Dublin Barista School. It is now €2.50

caviardreams

newacc2015 wrote: »

But you have ignored all the costs that make up that €2.50 coffee. It is not as simply as 20 cents for the coffee and €2.30 pure profit for the greedy hipster owner who is just an excellent marketer. I dont know if you are from Dublin or not. But rent is generally the reason why everything is more expensive in Dublin than say Carlow. You have completely ignored the various costs that make a coffee "overpriced".

BTW if that €2 place is Dublin Barista School. It is now €2.50

Yeah I noticed that recently - sad face
€3.50/4 is definitely over priced imo, but €2.50 is good value if it's good coffee.

You could make the same argument for any café produce really. You are not just paying for beans in a cup when you buy a coffee.

J_E

newacc2015 wrote: »

But you have ignored all the costs that make up that €2.50 coffee. It is not as simply as 20 cents for the coffee and €2.30 pure profit for the greedy hipster owner who is just an excellent marketer. I dont know if you are from Dublin or not. But rent is generally the reason why everything is more expensive in Dublin than say Carlow. You have completely ignored the various costs that make a coffee "overpriced".

BTW if that €2 place is Dublin Barista School. It is now €2.50

I don't object to paying that price for good coffee - I object paying it in the growing amount of places that just follow the going price and aren't willing to up their game for it. That's when it feels like an issue to me. The amount of times I've been in a 'talked about' place only to find the coffee a disappointment but paying as much as good places. You could argue I should stay at the same place but I like to be adventurous and see what is going around. I am aware it's Dublin, but when has a successful Dublin cafe made its money off prepared coffee drinks alone? Bit of an oversimplified justification.

newacc2015

J_E wrote: »

I am aware it's Dublin, but when has a successful Dublin cafe made its money off prepared coffee drinks alone? Bit of an oversimplified justification.

I dont know how many times I have been to Coffee Angel and everyone is just drinking coffee. They arent buying sandwiches or muffins/pastries. Dublin isnt really like the countryside where people sit in and have muffins etc. Dubliners in my experience tend to just have a coffee.

An oversimplified justification is not understanding why a cup of coffee is expensive in Dublin. It doesnt make a difference if a place is overstated or not. Running a business is extremely costly and prices generally reflect that

Graces7

Think I will stick with my early morning Nescafe Gold Blend...... simpler ....

quadrifoglio verde

Graces7 wrote: »

Think I will stick with my early morning Nescafe Gold Blend...... simpler ....

Aye and I'll stick to my aeropress....tastier.

And that's why coffee Angel and 3fe have been so successful.
They started with basically nothing, coffee Angel on the pier in howth after loosing a fortune on restaurants, 3fe in a nightclub on a dilapidated street in the city centre
Yes their price might be more expensive for coffee than your run of the mill coffee shop selling over roasted burnt coffee. But the product on offer is far superior which is why I and plenty others have no problem paying the price

J_E

newacc2015 wrote: »

I dont know how many times I have been to Coffee Angel and everyone is just drinking coffee. They arent buying sandwiches or muffins/pastries. Dublin isnt really like the countryside where people sit in and have muffins etc. Dubliners in my experience tend to just have a coffee.

An oversimplified justification is not understanding why a cup of coffee is expensive in Dublin. It doesnt make a difference if a place is overstated or not. Running a business is extremely costly and prices generally reflect that

Coffee Angel are one of the bigger sellers of consumer equipment with an online presence too - that's what I mean. It's never 'just coffee ', no business can survive on only that. Ahh, I'm not sure what this argument is even about anymore. Need a brew...