New - The things that really annoy you

[The Bear]

Coffee is generally shite and not worth the water it's brewed in.

 

[Alan]

Coffee is generally shite and not worth the water it's brewed in.

Worst take in site history (that didn't come from me).

 

[Tyrannosaurus Dan]

Tea > coffee

 

[Tredman]

What's that old saying about opinions, arseholes and mods on here?

 

[Boozad]

What's that old saying about opinions, arseholes and mods on here?

Opinions don’t stink?

 

[Alan]

Tea > coffee

I mean fair enough, your culture has been lead down the incorrect path so understand you can't help but be wrong on this.

 

[Kenny]

I mean fair enough, your culture has been lead down the incorrect path so understand you can't help but be wrong on this.

I'm with J. Alan Marsch on this one.

 

[Alan]

In fairness, coffee culture over there has (as far as I understand it) been infected by instant coffee for so long, it's no wonder Brits tend to prefer tea.

 

[Tredman]

It's almost there's no right or wrong answer.

 

[Alan]

It's almost there's no right or wrong answer.

Sure, if you wanna be fair-minded about it, you killjoy.

I, on the other hand, have no time for such silly pretenses of beverage equality.

 

[PuntsWolf]

Not having a go, just know from experience (both big coffee chains and small shops) that most cafés have razor thin margins as it is.

Genuinely intrigued how this can be so. Coffee beans are cheap. Water is very cheap. Electricity was and can be cheap. Normal cups cheap and reusable, paper cups cheap. Milk cheap.

How at £3 a drink, or £4 in the above example is there not a massive margin? Certainly when I worked in hospitality as a youth it was said to be pretty much 95% profit.

 

[Tyrannosaurus Dan]

I do actually like coffee (I own an aeropress), I just come from a family of tea drinkers so didn’t start drinking coffee until fairly recently. I can’t drink it daily though whereas I have to have a cup of tea every morning.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Genuinely intrigued how this can be so. Coffee beans are cheap. Water is very cheap. Electricity was and can be cheap. Normal cups cheap and reusable, paper cups cheap. Milk cheap.

How at £3 a drink, or £4 in the above example is there not a massive margin? Certainly when I worked in hospitality as a youth it was said to be pretty much 95% profit.

Building to sell it from, staff to make and sell it, rates to pay, taxes on everything.

 

[Alan]

Genuinely intrigued how this can be so. Coffee beans are cheap. Water is very cheap. Electricity was and can be cheap. Normal cups cheap and reusable, paper cups cheap. Milk cheap.

How at £3 a drink, or £4 in the above example is there not a massive margin? Certainly when I worked in hospitality as a youth it was said to be pretty much 95% profit.

Could be regional differences of course. Milk is absolutely not cheap at that scale, particularly when you consider the logistics involved with production, shipping, refrigeration, etc. Spilling milk was tantamount to a crime when I worked at Starbucks. It was drilled into us hard that milk was by far the most expensive ingredient we worked with.

If you're a brewed coffee drinker, you're keeping the lights on for most places. Pretty sure the margin for our brewed coffees was ~35%. For milk based drinks it could dip as low as 2%. And that's Starbucks, who own just about every link in their distribution chain. Things become much, much tougher for smaller cafés who can see milk based margins dip below 1%.

 

[BillyDee]

Building to sell it from, staff to make and sell it, rates to pay, taxes on everything.

Yeah but it's relative. Coffee has a gross profit of around 95% compared to 66-70% generally for food and drink.

 

[PuntsWolf]

Building to sell it from, staff to make and sell it, rates to pay, taxes on everything.

Same as any business. Most the time the product isn’t so cheap to produce

 

[BillyDee]

There's a reason why when high street retail is struggling, coffee shops are still springing up everywhere and usually rammed.

 

[Alan]

It's also worth pointing out that "coffee beans are cheap" is due in no small part to huge swathes of coffee farmers being paid what could generously be called a poverty wage.

There's a reason why when high street retail is struggling, coffee shops are still springing up everywhere and usually rammed.

Because people are addicted to caffeine innit.

 

[Johnny75]

I mean fair enough, your culture has been lead down the incorrect path so understand you can't help but be wrong on this.

Lectured by an American on culture

 

[PuntsWolf]

Could be regional differences of course. Milk is absolutely not cheap at that scale, particularly when you consider the logistics involved with production, shipping, refrigeration, etc. Spilling milk was tantamount to a crime when I worked at Starbucks. It was drilled into us hard that milk was by far the most expensive ingredient we worked with.

If you're a brewed coffee drinker, you're keeping the lights on for most places. Pretty sure the margin for our brewed coffees was ~35%. For milk based drinks it could dip as low as 2%. And that's Starbucks, who own just about every link in their distribution chain. Things become much, much tougher for smaller cafés who can see milk based margins dip below 1%.

Don’t know where you guys get your milk from but a year or so a go I could get 6 pints for £1.20 (now £2.30). If I was buying 100 pints I think it would be a bit cheaper… That’s a lot of middle men taking a cut. Going straight into the shop with more bulk I could bring down the price significantly.


Also restaurants have got walk in fridges (and freezers) storing a shit ton of food. Your storing milk (a pretty easy food to store) not fillet steak…

It's also worth pointing out that "coffee beans are cheap" is due in no small part to huge swathes of coffee farmers being paid what could generously be called a poverty wage.

Same applies to most food though unfortunately. When I buy a banana for 10p that’s travelled half way round the world in a massive fridge, the farmer is getting paid fuck all for that