Cuvee Coffee

Sometimes I brainstorm about $12 caps & lattes and $5 espresso & coffee. With the right real estate, and products like some of your customers' (and perhaps add a little "Food Network" flare), I think it would work well. Compare to walking out of Cold Stone after dropping $7, or $13 on a few pieces of sushi. The level some people take it to is very worthy of elite pricing. In turn, there are baristas that should be paid serious, professional wages for the skills they bring to the market. What would the net price affect be if a shop had a handful of baristas taking home $45K?

I agree that you should charge for an amazing cup! Unfortunately Wine has had a longer history of educating the market. Anti-patterns for education has been the commercial (grocery store) coffee market that caused their own decline by adding cheap robusta to their blends (probably where the term bean counter came from) which resulted in the public turning to other beverages like soda. Starbucks is another anti-pattern where they over roast and then put an expiration date of 1 year on the bag.

Baby steps, educate the consumer one customer at a time!

The irony is that coffee prices don't impact Starbucks as much as people think. Dairy, soy, flavor, rent and paper products impact the cost of a triple grande vanilla soy (or milk) latte more than a slight uptick on the C market price.

It should not be overlooked that SBUX posted huge profits in the final 3 months of 2009 while at the same time dairy prices were hovering around decade lows. Interesting that they would be raising prices at this point, however the pressure on the dairy industry has led to massive herd reduction which will eventually lead to higher prices. Perhaps it is forward thinking?

To Chris' question: To gross $45K a year you need to be paid about $22 and hour over a 40 hour work week. The employer's cost to pay $22 an hour is closer to $26 an hour. Add benefits and the amount inches towards $30. This would present some very significant challenges to remain a sustainable option. I'd venture that a collective of baristas who are all employee/owners would be a potential solution to the $45K question. Also, massive volume at a slightly higher price point may be a foundation.