$12 Cup Of Coffee Comes To New York

[witchcurlgirl]

MYFOXNY.COM - How much are you willing to pay for a cup of joe?

A gourmet coffee chain is betting you'll pay up to $12 for a fine brew.
Cafe Grumpy has Brooklyn locations in Greenpoint and Park Slope. It also has a Manhattan location in Chelsea.

It is part of a small, but growing, movement of coffee shops roasting their own beans.

The company defends the steep prices, saying they are higher end coffees and take much longer to develop and process.

The cafes offer a changing selection of coffees. One current offering is called Nekisse. It is described as a "very clean, sweet, complex cup with tropical fruit notes of pineapple, kiwi and key lime."

Cafe Grumpy also offers specialty teas.

$12 Cup Of Coffee Comes To New York

[greysfang]

I'd probably pay $12 once in awhile as a treat, but it wouldn't be a daily habit.

[Lalique]

They can bite my shiny, metal ass. It's effing coffee FFS. This is right up there with 20$ lollipops

[Sundance]

No way.

[MohandasKGanja]

Only for Kopi Leewak, or whatever that civet poop blend is called....

[DitaPage*]

Get real

[MontanaMama]

I'd probably pay $12 once in awhile as a treat, but it wouldn't be a daily habit.

I'd say once and if it wasn't the very best cup 'o joe I ever had, never again. We have lots of coffee places in my town that roast their own beans...for the most part, they over-roast them and the coffee tastes Starbucks burned. And none of them charge over $3 for a coffee (I don't drink the frou-frou things passing themselves off as coffee).

[Chalet]

We know what we're really paying for is their rent, the roasting machines, the labor and hourly salaries, cups, napkins and sugar.

That cup of coffee really costs 30 cents. And who wants their coffee to taste like tropical fruit?

[NVash]

That reminds me of a tea place in the mall where I used to live. They had amazing tea but they had three serious problems.
1) Most of them either tasted like nothing or werent good at all.
2) The prices were exorbitant. For conversations sake, I think they had some leaf in there, white tea, that was only picked on one day at a certain time each year. Think that was $100 a pound. And they had free samples, it tasted like nothing. I think the cheapest one was around $3 a pound for the leaves, and their tea is made from 3 different kinds of leaves BTW, and then $20 for their special sugar or...
3) You could buy a cup yourself for around $5. This cup was freshly brewed, you actually could watch them brew it and man would it anger you. See, they gave you maybe about three shots of hot freshly brewed tea and then an insane amount of ice. Sure, you got iced tea but you knew you had entirely too much ice in it. And dont you dare ask for less ice.

Needless to say, I always went there for the free samples. One day I happened to have some decent money in my pocket and bought a cup. Never again, I just go in and have free samples now.

Dont believe me? Teavana | Buy Tea Online: Green tea, Oolong tea, Black tea, White tea, Herbal tea and more! , they have a website. Maybe Im dense, but would you believe Ive had people telling me this is the only way to drink tea? I dont know, maybe Im too poor but I much prefer some Snapple or Lipton Brisk, the 'scraps', then buying this overpriced water. The leaves are way too expensive to make it myself and I know for a fact that I cant afford a cup nor do I want another one. Maybe if they stop it with the shots of tea and handfuls of ice Ill change my mind.

[sputnik]

i'd try it once because i'm a coffee fiend and i'd be curious to see what the fuss was about.
and if it really is all that i might have it every once in a while as a treat.
just like i'm willing to try an expensive wine but that's not to say that an expensive wine is necessarily better than one that's cheaper. but some wines are worth the expensive price tag. the same applies to coffee.

[Mr. Authority]

Or you could buy your own coffee in bulk maybe?

[MohandasKGanja]

i'd try it once because i'm a coffee fiend and i'd be curious to see what the fuss was about.

To a certain extent, it seems like a marketing gimmick. By charging some exorbitant amount ($12), you cultivate the idea that there IS a cup of coffee worth that amount.

However, as someone said earlier, based on the cost of coffee $21 per pound for really good coffee, and the fairly simple process of roasting (along with various fixed and variable costs involved in running a coffee shop), you can't really derive an honest cost basis for charging that much for a cup of coffee.

[sputnik]

^^^
yeah but if you know your coffee you can tell the difference. i would have absolutely no problem in admitting the 12$ coffee was crap or just not worth the price after trying it. just like i can try a really expensive wine and i won't be afraid to say i don't like it if i don't.

[Brookie]

I don't even frequent Starbucks because I think their prices are stupid. $12 - nope. Gimme a Tim Horton's or Mickey D's.

[MohandasKGanja]

^^^
yeah but if you know your coffee you can tell the difference. i would have absolutely no problem in admitting the 12$ coffee was crap or just not worth the price after trying it. just like i can try a really expensive wine and i won't be afraid to say i don't like it if i don't.

It kind of reminds me of this ice cream place that used to be around when I was a kid -- Farrell's. On their menu (as a gag, I hope), they had listed "perfect scoop of vanilla ice cream" for $100.

The description was like out of a J. Peterman catalog -- over-the-top prose saying how great it was. I remember thinking back then, "that must be the best scoop of ice cream EVER."