Iced latte with almond milk today(Sunday) in Sandringham was $8.93 (incl credit card surcharge). So $8.80 I think. Large but not any bigger than other large sizes I get in the area for $6.80 (my Black Rock regular - this is the price everyday) or $7.50 (my Hampton regular - this is also price everyday). Lovely cafe and I’ve been before but not on a weekend so the surcharge on a Sunday has pushed it into my ‘too expensive’ bucket. What’s your maximum weekend price for coffee with ‘alternative milk’ ?
Sandringham is the new Hampton and hampton is the new brighton. Only gonna get more expensive as the locals move out and money moves in.
Damn. Good explanation thx. Limiting my Sandringham coffees for sure!
And Brighton is the new what?
Brighton is the new Toorak
Toorak is the new?
Toorak is the new Kew
Kew is the new Footscray. What goes around comes around.
Footscray is the new Yarraville
"Thats the circle...the circle of.."
Thanks
This is the reason I bought a machine for home. Yes they make it better in our fabulous Melbourne cafes, but I drink 2 strong a day, so $11 if I buy it, $77 a week, where I now spend $25 on beans every 2-3 weeks.
I buy a coffee if out with friends or with work colleagues.
Definitely adds up doesn’t it. Will be following your lead with when I get coffee at a cafe. Thank you!
100%. And honestly no shade to anyone who doesn’t want a machine - I do have to make my own, but it’s honestly great and I now make a pretty good coffee.
I got an entry level breville, $750, it’s been great.
Also the money you save on buying it you can spend a little extra on beans so you still buy nice tasting coffee. Don’t bother with the really cheap coles stuff - good coffee usually costs anywhere from $11 to $35 for 250g. We are spoilt for roasters in Melbourne so you can try them all :)
If you like black or filter coffee, you can also just get an Aeropress for ~$30 and a decent grinder and make great coffee at home with no skill needed.
in terms of bang for buck a v60 cone is absurd too.
Aeropress ain’t cheap since they got bought out by a venture capital company. They start at $60 now
That’s a shame. I still think it’s great value even at $60, but hopefully it won’t follow the usual venture capital path of increased price and decreased quality.
It’s gone premium, there’s an expensive glass version now. The original is still the same and makes consistently good filter.
Try Little Rebel in Dromana, thet also have a vending machine out front so can pick your beans anytime. Might do online order, but highly recommend. I am biased as a hospitality pro for 36 yrs, but chef partner and i have used for 11yrs 1st domestically now in our restaurant. Never an unhappy coffee drinker 😊
Thanks for the heads up. I’ll have to try. I’ve tried a bunch so far, my favs are:
Fieldwork coffee (house espresso)
ACoffee (house espresso)
St Ali - Italian Disco
Market Lane (I know I know, over done, but it’s delicious)
This is excellent to know for a novice.
Entry level is how much now? Pretty sure I got my dual boiler around that price.
I will forever sing praises of Aldi beans - around $30 for 1kg (500g for the single origin).
Not super great, but it's been my daily for a few months now.
100 percent on board with the Aldi dark roasted beans and so are my friends that I make coffees for. This is after trying many boutique roasters. My coffee machine needed repairing. Repairers let some of their beans in the hopper. Tried a coffee from thiers. Rang them to see what th beans were- Aldi
Depends on what coffee your like, you may not need an espresso machine. I use an aeropress or, more often, a french press. 30g of Woolami beans from Chosen Been makes me 800 mls of coffee. I have a cup and put the rest in a flask for two more coffees.
That works out to less than 2 bucks a day. I have mine black, so your mileage may vary.
You can make it just as good if not better at home. YouTube James Hoffman.
Or join us lunatics on /r/hamesjoffman
The Bickfords Iced Coffee syrup is surprisingly good as a significantly cheaper alternative to buying a whole machine, if iced is the goal.
If you gain a bit of knowledge how to dial in your beans properly and buy fresh beans you can easily make better coffee at home than 95% of cafes out there. Assuming you have a halfway decent espresso machine and grinder. We buy our beans from Aldi (single origin Colombian) and the flat white I make at home tastes better than what our local cafe does that is known for good fancy coffees.
Yeah I think that is my next learning track. I’ve almost mastered milk and pouring (not that latte art matters at home - but it’s fun), I’m good on the cleaning and care front, bean and coffee knowledge I still need more on.
I’ve not really played around with the different settings. But it is amazing at how different the flavours are across beans
100% fun and opportunity to show off, but I have also come to term that if I lost concentration and messed up the texture, I paid for the milk and I'm drinking it anyway. Throw away perfectly drinkable coffee? In Thai economy?
Yeh never. It’s more a one and some kind of thing. I’m not re doing anything and destroying good coffee. I get two practices a day :)
I think it was said that home barista can make better coffee now with the 3rd wave coffee trend as the gears has gone nuts and people are going above and beyond dialing stuff in with zero consideration of business operation efficiencies.
$25 on beans, drinking 2 coffees a day so assume you are buying 500g bags?
cant be good or equal quality to a cafe for that price,
you also probably arent doing the required level of cleaning, nor including cleaning in the price
Great analysis…almost nothing is right. Re read the comment a little more carefully. Good try though :)
I buy the aldi beans, used to buy single origin local roasted beans for literally 4 times the price.
The aldi beans aren't the same, but now that it's me making it I make a much more consistent-for-my-preference coffee.
I hear coffee snobs go off their heads talking about grinders and grinds and pulls and shot sizes and holy shit.
But my coffee, out of my machine, is the coffee I have dialed in to my taste.
It is always 100% good. Compared with barrista coffee, sometimes it's better, often times it's worse. Many times in those speciallty coffee shops - I'm sure it's a great coffee I am buying, but it isn't tuned for me, it's tuned to some ideal coffee that the barrista is chasing, and tastes like shit.
i'm a coffee snob who will go off my head about grind size and ratios and extraction, but i also buy aldi beans for espresso at home. they are shockingly decent for the price.
filter coffee different story, worth splurging there.
you think your cheap beans are good? must be lashings of sugar laddened milk in it
you think your meaningless drivel on Reddit means anything? you are sad
[removed]
lol…are you ok dude? Shouldn’t your account have been banned with the social media ban?
Hey buddy, settle down. It's Reddit.
i mean i need to settle down? at least i dont brag to the internet about cheap coffee beans lmao
quick edit? im no longer bullying people?
Somehow replacing steamed milk with ice and milk straight from the bottle is worthy of nearly doubling the price.
Where are you buying a barista made coffee for $4.40 on a Sunday?
Honestly I’m not in the habit of buying coffee anymore so don’t have a good feel for current pricing. But regardless of the price of a typical large latte, why is an “iced latte” any more expensive? If anything it’s less labour to make and should be cheaper.
It uses more milk. Milk is expensive.
Labour is the same. Barista still needs to make the shots of coffee. Frothing milk takes the same amount of time as going to ice machine. It's not cheaper to make an iced latte.
Because more milk is used in an ice drink and it costs money to make ice
Bullshit excuse.
It’s bullshit “charge the maximum the customer is willing to pay” rather than pricing a product based on reasonable markup on inputs.
If you say so
The cups also cost significantly more per unit, especially if you get BioCup ones.
The obvious answer here is to use the same amount of milk as a small, but in a large cup to accommodate the ice. There’s really no reason to make these drinks in enormous expensive transparent cups filled to the brim with milk
My tipping point was $5 for a large. And the way they shrinkflate that large too to a medium, gives me war criminal emotions.
95% of the time I now make coffee at home, but have my occasional heart attack when buying from the cafes.
The emotions yes! It’s totally on me of course for not checking prices but agh yes the (minor) bill shock is hard! Thank you.
I’m in the inner east, and it’s now $5-5.20 for a small with full cream milk. Criminal.
I don’t really have a maximum price, I just avoid drinking coffee I haven’t made at home, as much as possible. When I do treat myself to a barista coffee, I don’t even look at the price because I know I’ve already saved a lot..
7/Eleven coffee + brew at home. Daily barista coffee is not realistic unless you are making bank.
So true.
Maximum I've paid is $8.90 I think, cheapest is my large cap from Flagstaff Station for $4.50 i believe
Yip, got a delongi prestigio and never looked back. Use the same beans as our favourite cafe. Took a bit of practice but getting pretty close to what they serve…and saving a ton of money and time👍
Good for you! Still enjoying your coffee but not paying some crazy prices.
Haha thanks…machine was an investment but definitely paid off😆
I make my own cold crew, or I use cold brew concentrate and almond milk - I also levelled up with sugar free syrups and bought the keep cup iced coffee cups which make the drink feel so much more fancy.
My willingness to pay stopped when I pay over $6.50 for a coffee, and I can’t understand how the iced coffees are $8+ so started making my own.
I second home made latte with Aldi beans, my trusty Sunbeam 6910 and dialled grinder. Amazing crema when ground to order, and the satisfaction of a superior coffee for less than 80 cents
We were charged $8 for a coffee in Barwon heads, should have had a wine!
There's probably more margin on a $8 glass of house wine than on a $8 large almond latte!
Oh no! Hope that was a public holiday or had non dairy milk.
This is still cheap compared to London or most US cities. For a drink made for you on the spot by a trained barista produced using coffee grown on the other side of the world by people taking great care to ensure the quality is right, let alone the roasting and all that over here, It’s a bargain. You don’t get many drinks that have had so much work put into them that cheap. A lot of cafes are struggling right now due to high input costs. Support your local if you can afford it.
Can confirm having travelled to the US beginning of this year and the AUS equivalent of what they were charging for standard coffee with regular milk was about $10-$12 after tax and tipping. The fact that most places charge $5-$6 here for the same thing (but obviously way better) is pretty good. Weekend/public holiday surcharges and extra cost for ice and alternative milk is usually where you see the cost go upwards of $7-$8, and while I love catching up with people and supporting local businesses it definitely makes me think twice about getting coffee on a weekend.
6.80 is as much as I’ll pay.
Thank you. Very happy with my $6.80 one in Black Rock. Think I’m going to start checking prices more. My fault today.
That’s insane, you should be able to get a decent coffee for $5
I agree but it supports a local business who supports the local school.
Always a charge for almond milk plus large plus Sunday…but not this much of a charge in my experience. $5 sounds great!
If you're buying iced lattes in beachside suburbs I don't want to hear your take on affordability, mkay.
I don’t actually understand why ice lattes went from slightly more than a hot one and are often low the same as an ice coffee or a smoothie. Extremely fast to make with less labour than a regular coffee. And the ice takes up most of the volume. It does feel more to me that someone decided to charge a tonne more. I’ve always made them myself or had them made due to being diabetic so it was a better option for me on a hot day. But honestly it makes a place with bad coffee taste even worse. I don’t drink them by choice and now feel I’m paying to be punished.
I got charged 6.60 for a small pot of tea in Preston yesterday. So it's not posh suburb based. They Jack up the tea prices to match coffee for some reason! Doesn't make sense.
So I love Preston. So buzzy. And so much delicious food! But that’s beside the point. Hope at least it was loose leaf tea.
$8.60 is fucking insane. Which is why I make mine at home 99% of the time, just as good and I can make them how I want
St. Ali in South Melbourne, small latter was $6.50 on card. So expensive!!
St Ali is pricey isn’t it. Haven’t been for years but remember it was years ago. If that’s just normal milk and small that’s only just less than my big almond milk iced in black rock (which is big!).
Paid nearly $8 for a small oat flat white st a Richmond cafe on swan street the other day. It was the 27th so not sure if surcharges were happening but it’s absolutely lunatic. 9/10 times I just make black filter coffee at home and I’m satisfied. As much as I love the coffee scene, I genuinely cannot enjoy it the way I’d like to with these coffee prices. I had to stop my hobby of exploring coffees around the city because the price does not justify it, or it’s super mediocre.
Well if it was the 27th that would have been weekend surcharges.
That’s very steep. Yes totally relate - I too like to go to different cafes for experience and as a treat but the price is making it more of a monthly treat.
True ignorance is believing not buying a coffee that’s “too expensive” is making a difference. It won’t. Coffee is still too cheap, cafes are going under and it’s gonna get worse because it’s a race to the bottom because of frugals like yourself.
As someone who manages a cafe, thank you for being a voice of reason.
I don’t manage a cafe but I get it. Unlike these fucking losers who complain their $8 coffee is too expensive. The world is expensive. Cafes have bills to pay. $8 for something that was hand made for you is not far fetched.
Also OP lives in Sandringham. Enough said.
I’ve said the fault is mine for not checking and it’s a lovely cafe. I personally haven’t paid $8.80 for this before. As for your assumptions about me living in Sandringham or who people are based on where they live, perhaps don’t assume anything.
Maccas charges around $5 for a latte, add a little more cost for the cafe and $8 sounds about right.
Well it's a good thing that I mostly drink tea. For me going to a cafe is very much a social occasion, and so I don't go there unless I'm meeting someone.
Maccas is a terrible comparison, they charge $5.00 for a large Coke which is just syrup and water. It costs less for a 600ml bottle of the real deal at most cafes.
Then stop complaining. Grow up. Shit is expensive. Make coffee at home. You don’t need a post to fucking confirm this.
That comment is unnecessarily mean.
You know what’s mean? Complaining about $8 coffees when people can’t pay their fucking bills. Grow up.
Sounds like you’re having a hard time of things right now. I hope things get better.
Ha nah man. I make a lot of money and pay for my coffees.
I’m sure you do. But your money wasn’t what I was talking about. Take care of yourself.
You could try making one at home each day for free? Milk + coffee + ice + glass (or if going out a plastic drink container).
Thank you! I do make a coffee at home as well but needed incentive to get out of the house today (crazy but true) and somehow my iced lattes at home aren’t great. After the coffee I actually had a msssive fall with a pram and dogs and honestly blaming it on my coffee $ headspace. Definitely less coffees out tho!
I went to that Puzzle coffee place at chadstone. On a normal day it was almost 9 dollars for a cold brew and it was tiny!
Just order a latte and a cup of ice
Hot milk in a normal latte will just melt the ice
$2 BP Coffee from self serve machine
I was charged $6.90 for a small late from Brother Baba Budan on Boxing Day, that’s $6 for the coffee and 15% (90c) public holiday surcharge.
I think at this price, no surcharge should be paid given how expensive a small coffee is, but I do acknowledge that the cafe (owned by Seven Seeds coffee roasters) do source their beans ethically.
I read like 6 years ago that if we were to pay a living wage to the bean harvesters, our coffees would cost $7 per cup. That was 7 years ago, so adjusting for inflation it would be around $8.50ish for a SMALL coffee.
Mind you, in England (terrible coffee) you’ll be paying minimum £3-4 (or $6-8) for a cup of coffee, even at the worst cafes.
Do you buy alcoholic drinks out?
I get a weekly coffee from Eclair in Hampton and it's around $5-6 for a large latte with regular mil
Times have changed hey. Damn i love Brighton, check out Oli and Ari when you can, my local they open from 545am and have a queue down the street when they do
Hey look after post punching down at cafes. Cool.
Bought a baby chino for $4.50 the other day. It floored me.
OK that’s nuts! But not sure what going rate is but that’d be a one off for sure!
I’m sorry, I couldn’t get past the first sentence. Iced latte with almond milk is not what most Australians would class as coffee.
Pretty stock standard coffee order tbh
Chill out, snob. It’s a hot summer day. Pretty common order.
Disagree. It's plenty popular in my experience and it has espresso in it so it's coffee
If it’s got a shot of espresso in it, it’s coffee. The alt milk and ice is pretty normal. It’s not my coffee order either but live and let live eh.
Iced coffee is incredibly common, and the milk isn’t really the relevant part here. It’s super strange some Australians think you’ve got to have a hot, milky drink in the middle of Summer. There is also cold brew and iced filter which are two other options..
Reminder for me to try cold brew and iced filter! Thx.
In my world it’s pretty common but whatever. I don’t consume dairy which is pretty common. And it’s hot so I drink iced!
My wife who is cows protein intolerant says this all the time, she is what I would classify as most Australians. I think your assumptions are misplaced.
An iced latte on a 25 degree day with non-dairy milk is not coffee? Ok bozo.
Booooo!!!