As the inflation rate continues to creep upward, many of us are taking a closer look at our monthly expenses and wondering where we can cut back. A coffee subscription can feel indulgent in a moment like this. Would you be worse off buying your coffee at a grocery store and saving a few bucks?
Let’s try to answer that question here. To do so, we need to understand what affects the price of coffee. There are lots of factors, some of which we’ve explored in earlier posts, like supply and demand. For this post, we’ll limit our discussion to the most significant ones. In other words, the factors that tend to have the most bearing on price.
All beans are not the same
There are two main types of coffee beans: arabica and robusta. Cheap coffee is often 100% robusta or a blend of robusta and arabica because robusta beans cost less to produce and are cheaper for importers, roasteries, and coffee companies to buy. Expensive coffee, on the other hand, is almost always pure arabica, which can be more challenging to grow and typically yields less.
In terms of taste, you don’t need to be a connoisseur to notice a difference. Robusta coffee is often described as earthy or bitter, whereas arabica coffee will usually bear fruity and chocolate-y notes and a smooth taste.
Location, location, location
Drilling down even further, coffee can be expensive not just because of the type of bean but also because of where those beans were grown. A couple posts back, we defined the term “single-origin coffee.” In a nutshell, it refers to beans that were grown at a single farm or a region. If the farm or region has a reputation for consistently growing quality coffee, you better believe it will be reflected in the price.
Often, though, the cost has less to do with growing practices and more to do with location. The highest quality coffee beans are grown in microclimates within larger growing regions within Africa, Asia and Indonesia, and Central and South America. Consumers pay for this exclusivity.
By contrast, cheap coffee is usually grown at low altitudes because beans grow faster there than they do at the top of a mountain and they’re easier to harvest. There’s less temperature variability at low altitude, and this causes beans to mature quickly, which is great for volume, but not so much for quality. The growth period can be so brief that coffee beans at low altitude don’t develop the same complexity or density of beans grown at high altitude.
Small batches = greater quality control
Finally, expensive coffee is typically bought and roasted in small batches, while cheap coffee moves through the same process in much higher volumes. If you’re invested enough to care what region your coffee comes from, it will probably matter to you who roasted those beans. A small roaster will have a higher degree of control over the roasting process, ensuring that they’re drawing the best out of each given bean type.
Of course, that kind of precision comes with a higher price tag.
Is that higher price tag worth it?
You probably didn’t start out drinking expensive coffee. It was a gradual process. At each stage, you appreciated a difference. And so, you kept going, fully understanding at this point that more expensive coffee simply tastes better.