Why on Earth does this cup of coffee cost $20?
Just when we were getting used to complaining about the $6 lattes at the hipster coffee shop on the corner, the artisan coffee industry finds a way to make that price seem positively affordable.
How about a $20 cup of coffee? Yes. You read that right.
Blue Bottle coffee shops, which have outposts in San Francisco, LA, NYC and Tokyo, recently began offering coffee brewed from beans grown by a man named Hussein al-Haba in Yemen. Due to the extreme landscape on the farm where they are grown, the coffee beans are super rare, grown and roasted with the utmost care. Because of this, it costs $16 for a pour-over cup, or $20 for a siphon pot. If you’d rather brew it at home, you can buy 6 ounces of the coffee beans for $65.
According to James Freeman, the owner of Blue Bottle, accepting the price is all about changing your perception of what coffee is worth: “Sixteen dollars, that’s the cost of an appetizer at a pretty nice restaurant or a medium glass of wine — or one of the best coffees, hopefully, that people will ever taste.”
To be honest, we have to say we’re intrigued. But for now, we’ll stick to our $2 iced coffees, but hey, maybe if we win the lottery someday, we’ll treat ourselves to a cup.
