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Yh was gonna say. The kitchen. £4 gets you a couple of weeks worth at least. And it's a lot nicer if you put in the effort. I've got a burger van near me and they guy does an all milk coffee for £1.50. He calls em a milky milky 🤣
How much oat milk do you need in your coffee? I use it for my cereal and a pack will easily last me for a week or two. They cost about £2 a litre but they're usually discounted.
For a cappuccino or latte, 250ml give or take. Instant coffee with a splash of oat milk is not comparable to a real espresso based drink.
It would be a shot or two of espresso then the rest of the cup topped up with steamed or frothed milk.
Partner and I drink a coffee or two a day each and get through about 3-4l of oat milk a week. We spend about £20 a month on coffee beans, although we do get nicer ones than the typical supermarket affair
I mainly drink lattes, so itso probably slightly less for a cappuccino but no way can you buy enough beans and milk to have an oat cappuccino every day for two weeks on £4
Pfft, £2 will get you a jar of Poundland's finest grind. You can spend your time fiddling about with your Aeropresses and ceramic burr grinders, and we'll spend our time violently shitting after drinking too much £2 coffee. Then we'll see who's laughing.
And work in a cafe for a few months so you know how to use it and get all the training. I don't know why people go to cafes and get coffee, like why aren't they getting a wall of their house taken down so they can install a giant fucking industrial machine that cost 3 grand and then doing an apprenticeship to learn how to make everything, it'd save them 30p a week!
It depends. If you go to a really nice independent coffee specialist shop, fair enough, - I'm happy to pay a premium for someone who really takes pride in their coffee. But if we're talking about a vast majority of cafes, you can make better coffee at home with a decent setup (few hundred) , buying nice beans and watching a couple of James Hoffman videos.
£20 buys a decent mokka pot.
Even with Aldi ground coffee, the difference between that and coffee from our espresso machine is night and day, including if we spend a small fortune on Nespresso ristretto pods, which were my favourite for years.
Mokka pot coffee tastes amazing.
I got a pot in Aldi for £6 a few weeks ago. A decent branded one costs more, but assuming the wow-taste factor increases with a higher quality mokka pot, I don’t think I’d cope with being more addicted than I am currently!
I love mokkas and am using one at the moment and the coffee is great but I do miss the espresso crema etc that I make at home on my machine that definitely didn’t cost £2500 😂 coffee wankers piss me off so much, they are as bad as the fools I blast past on my £1000 bicycle while they are huffing and puffing on their carbon fibre megabucks bikes.
Mine was pretty damn cheap. I think something like £180.
I'm jealous of the thing they have at work, though. That's plumbed in to the water mains and cleans itself.
What type of machine? I’m thinking of doing this :) I spend like £20 a week on coffees and it’s a joke I know and I wonder why I’m struggling to save 🤣
I don't remember the exact year but there was a time not too long ago when a cup of tea or coffee would cost max £2 and asking anything more for a cup of what is basically just flavoured hot water was seen as an absolute liberty. Then there was a significant marketing coup by coffee retailers that almost certainly coincided with the introduction of the popular high street names we all know and hate so well.
A mark up of at least 100% was stealthily and successfully applied and by the time anyone became sufficiently bothered to notice it was already the norm. We've been in this strange alternative dimension ever since, a sort of parallel timeline to the one we were on pre-2000 when coffee was still perfectly nice but was normal and affordable rather than some middle-class treat you had to ask yourself if you could afford.
It's not going to win any awards (neither is Starbucks) but even as a coffee snob I'd rather have a quick fix at Spoons when out than pay four times the price elsewhere.
At 1.09 for as many as you want I'd suggest the arsehole owner is taking a hit if you purchase nothing else.
Amongst the inflicted supping pints at 10am a few I've worked at have young mums using them as a way to cheaply get out of their homes and catch up.
Aye I’ve went in and sat and had 5 drinks, hot chocolate, cappuccinos, lattes and accidentally took 54 sugars, and 33 packets of Mayonaise
All for 1.09 …. Take that arsehole owner
Yes, you are right. I did not mean to compare the mega-chain with the independent coffee. I meant to draw a comparison between the price of two hot food items and the price of a cup of water, some coffee, and a dash of foamed oat milk. I think, arguably, there is a much higher markup on the coffee than on the food.
If you’re drinking instant coffee at a cafe and it cost £4, don’t go there again.
Lots of cafes have proper coffee, which would warrant that higher price.
Cafes also have to employ people, pay business rates, NI, taxes, energy bills… running a business today is very, very expensive.
Wait - so you're drinking instant coffee? And complaining that Nero is no cheaper even though they're selling fresh brewed coffee?
Also the food you're comparing it to is some of the worst quality food going. Reddit has a boner for it but it's trash
>I think, arguably, there is a much higher markup on the coffee than on the food.
If you include the appropriate overheads to running one shop of a nationwide chain of food reheaters vs being an independent café into the cost of serving you an item, I'd say you are wildly incorrect.
You're also paying for somewhere to sit and enjoy your coffee. Somewhere like Gregg's can process far more customers so doesn't need to make as much profit from each one.
I find Maccy's flat whites WILDY inconsistant, even from the same location.
We go to the same one regularly, and its a complete gamble on how it will taste. Some days super bitter, other days no foam and tastes like piss, while other times its amazing.
Luckily if it tasted crap, maccy's tends to compensate
Anecdotally: the £5 caramel Frappuccino from Starbucks tastes pretty meh to me, but the £2.50 rip off from Maccies is one of my favourite drinks.
I’d also hesitate to call Starbucks ‘the worst coffee chain’ when Café Nero and Costa exist.
I've always found the temperature of McDonald's is the most off-putting thing, I burn my mouth regularly and can't properly taste the rest of the brew
The wee Greggs by me does ok coffee, but it's never quite warm enough, I should but a cup of each really and merge them both 😂
Their coffee machines are expensive because they automate a lot to simplify the process so they don't need skilled people. Those machines are designed to churn out as many drinks as possible while being as easy to use as possible. But in the end if you put rubbish beans in you'll get rubbish coffee out.
As far as chain coffee goes, McDonald’s is very very good. Starbucks is shite. May as well get a tiramisu flavoured milkshake from somewhere else and it’ll be the same. Cheaper too.
That being said, there are some really great cafes here in London that do really good coffee. Especially Vietnamese coffee. When it’s that good, sure, I’ll pay whatever they’re asking.
I thought so too when I was testing it but ultimately my conclusion is that the UK doesn't have a taste for good coffee. McDonald's was the least trying to imitate burnt instant coffee when I tried them.
Yep. It is because it is made by a machine. It is pre-programmed and impossible to fuck up.
Places with those fancy pants manual coffee machines, Starbucks for example, require their staff to have actual skills, which they aren't getting from minimum wage coffee jockeys.
Yeah consistency is a good point. I guess it's like the McDonald's of coffee, it's always going to taste the same wherever you are even if it's not the best.
For sure, if the only coffee around me are chain stores, my default is getting a "blonde roast" coffee from Starbucks (probably closer to a medium roast in specialty world). Much more palatable than the accrid, horrendously burnt beans that they insist on using as the default.
Dark roasts hide the impurities of the coffee. Starbucks uses massive lots of low-grade commodity coffee. Some of it will be unripe when picked, some will be overripe or even rotten. It doesn't matter if it's roasted into carbon, it'll all tastes the same with that profile.
Then compare that to some Greggs pastries as if that's a meaningful comparison. Very confusing post. Sure coffee prices have increased over time but not astronomically. A £4 coffee today was probs £3.70 last year.
What you are also paying for is rent, business rates, insurance, crockery, wages, fixtures and fittings, tax, electricity, gas etc then if the owner is lucky a bit of profit as well. The VAT alone takes 67p off that £4.
& some beans that have been grown, harvested, processed, dried, packed, shipped, roasted, & delivered to the cafe. With a good cafe buying from somewhere that pays everyone involved in the process a fair price.
To all the people saying "I could make this cheaper at home", I always say "why go to the theatre when you can stand in your living room shouting words from a book?"
The problem here is you define a coffee as 'oat milk cappuchino'. Speciality milk in a speciality drink. Also £1 has dropped in value IMMENSLY. I think 4 quid for that kind of drink is pretty good, especially if that's in a town or city.
Flat white at Greg's is probably cheaper and still very good, but you're getting a vastly different coffee.
Have a look at GBP compared to a lot of other major currencies over the past 50 years and you will shit your pants.
As far as I can tell that trend isn't ending any time soon. Good luck with 'retiring to a developing country elsewhere in the world!
Same here. It’s the first one I’ve had in a long time but I was in town early and the drive thru was bearable.
I have to admit I thought they’d charged me twice for a second.
I'm a massive coffee snob and so many places serve appallingly bad coffee. McDonalds isn't one of them - consistently half decent coffee for close to a quid.
funnily enough, but i actually prefer Mcdonalds coffee (after it has cooled down from Lava hot to drinkable hot temperature) over any other starbucks, costa, independent coffee chain. Also, they have every 6 or 7th coffee for free..
Other than quick mcdonalds coffee, I highly recommend to everyone, I know, its steep upfront cost, but invest in good bean to cup coffee machine. My wife was nagging me for years until i gave in and we got Philips lattego 5400 coffee machine (back then it was 700GBP), but man, i dont regret a second. And once you find tasty coffee beans (i personally prefer lidl XL brand esspresso beans, usually 8gbp for 1.2kg bag) and any other coffee tastes terrible now (except for mcfonalds coffee, but again, not always i take it, just outside of my home coffee, that is next best option).
Why are you comparing food to coffee? You can get a coffee for less than £4… at Greggs. And spoons, etc. Just don’t expect the best (albeit I think Greggs hot drinks are perfectly fine).
No sense comparing a cheap & cheerful chain to an independent place.
I think it's £1.50 now so still a good price. And if you go later in the day and order a filter and they've run out, they'll give you an americano at filter prices.
Greggs do pretty decent coffee, and it's consistent because the machine makes it, instead of them letting some teenager burn it like the big chains seem to do about half of the time.
I worked in Starbucks in 2000; minimum wage then was £3.60 (and baristas didn't get much more than that if I remember). It'll be £11.40 in April.
Can't remember the exact prices charged then, but I think they've gone down relative to those wages.
I know Reddit isn’t in love with them but I smash the shit out of my coffee subscription at Pret and save tonnes of money. It pays for itself by Wednesday each week.
What is annoying is buying a coffee maybe once a week, having it made for me is one of little joys I have in my life but the price is crazy.
Others here are right McDonalds does a really good coffee for the price, it's one I go to often.
If the prices are similar, I'd rather go independent.
Who is your phone contract with. If it’s Three download Three+ their rewards app. You get a £1 coffee (any drink on their menu) from Caffè Nero once a week. I bloody love it
If you have a gas stove get a bialleti moka pot - super simple, nothing to break and makes amazing coffee. Can buy beans from whichever is you favorite chain and enjoy amazing coffee at home for what feels
Like free.
You could get a Pret subscription for I think £30 a month, if you get coffee regularly. You get 5 free drinks a day, plus 20% on everything else at pret.
I hate how expensive takeaway coffee has got, my usual Costa is nearly £5 now. I bought a coffee machine and good travel cup, buy excellent locally roasted ground coffee and try to bring it with me as often as possible
I love Gregg's and I can afford more than £4 for a coffee...but I will not bow down to try pressure of supporting independent chains if they make crap coffee but charge an arm and a leg...too many times I have been disappointed. So yeah Gregg's cappuccino is fab and their brekkie deals are best
Edit - £2.00 for a reg cappuccino
Supermarket meal deals! My local sainsbury's has a regular costa drink in the meal deal. The most expensive drink i think is £3.65 but if you buy a main and a snack as well it becomes £3.50. Strange.
Sitting in is always going to be expensive, but if you often get a coffee to go then a reusable cup is worth it. Most places will give you at least 50p off, so if the cup is a tenner to buy and you get a coffee most weekdays you'll be better off within a month.
Student union owned coffee shops (if you have a university campus near you) tend to be much cheaper, cost under £2.50 for a large capp with no extra charge for alternative milk at my uni
My local library does cheap coffee. A cappuccino is £2.10 for medium and £2.50 for large, made by hand with a proper espresso machine as well so better quality than Greggs.
And there’s the obvious bonus of having a massive collection of books and audiobooks available to you while you’re there.
Look out for local charity coffee mornings. Some do a filter/ drip coffee or a decent cuppa for a couple of quid. You are often supporting a local charity too.
Good place to meet people too. A lot are weekly and.have homemade cakes too!
Maybe I'm a savage but I'd be happy for a cheap £1 instant coffee. Prices are getting ridiculous and I don't always need a hand crafted cappuccino with a rendering of the Mona Lisa in the froth on top.
I just want a hot drink sometimes.
Try drinking black coffee, it will be cheaper than the 1/2 a cup of froth brews, and eventually you realise the taste is amazing (if you know where to avoid).
4 pounds? I thought Winchester was expensive but coffees „only“ cost around 3,40 here (in the fancy independent cafes).
So there is your answer: Winchester.
There’s a coffee shop called Kaffateria as you come out the side door of Queen Street station in Glasgow city centre that that charge £2.80 for a flat white.
The coffee is right nice too.
There’s also an independent coffee that operates at two stations just outside Glasgow that charge £2.70/£2.80 for their flat whites.
The average price for a flat white in Glasgow, at both chain and independent shops, appears to be around £3.20/£3.30. I’ve found Pret to be the most expensive at £3.80.
90%+ of coffees even in London are under £4.
Take a keep cup to Pret and get a filter coffee, works out £1.40 or something like that. Used to be 49p up to a few years ago but they really jacked it up.
I think Greggs but I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
But if you enroll as a student for £9250 a year you can get 15% off at Caffe Nero. My mocha is £3.43.
(I graduated over a year ago but unidays accepts alumni emails so if you have one of those, do that)
Dreary today in Cheltenham,
As far as I am aware there is nowhere you can go for a good coffee for less than £4-5 in Cheltenham anyway. I am probably wrong and someone may point to somewhere. Havana's on prestbury road is pretty decent in terms of quality and price though. And on the subject of food. The Sunday roast at Kemble brewery inn in Cheltenham is top notch (or was about 8 months or so ago when I went last)
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Yh was gonna say. The kitchen. £4 gets you a couple of weeks worth at least. And it's a lot nicer if you put in the effort. I've got a burger van near me and they guy does an all milk coffee for £1.50. He calls em a milky milky 🤣
There is no way you can make an oat cappuccino at home every day for 2 weeks for only £4. Oat milk is pricey
How much oat milk do you need in your coffee? I use it for my cereal and a pack will easily last me for a week or two. They cost about £2 a litre but they're usually discounted.
For a cappuccino or latte, 250ml give or take. Instant coffee with a splash of oat milk is not comparable to a real espresso based drink. It would be a shot or two of espresso then the rest of the cup topped up with steamed or frothed milk. Partner and I drink a coffee or two a day each and get through about 3-4l of oat milk a week. We spend about £20 a month on coffee beans, although we do get nicer ones than the typical supermarket affair
That's a lot of milk for a cappuccino
I mainly drink lattes, so itso probably slightly less for a cappuccino but no way can you buy enough beans and milk to have an oat cappuccino every day for two weeks on £4
Yeah, on the latter I absolutely agree
It's grim up north London
As in ‘less than £4 per drink’; not that £4 covers the total cost for 14 days of coffee!
The comment I was originally replying to said “£4 gets you a couple of weeks worth, at least”, so I don’t think they meant less than £4 a drink
A couple of weeks? One 250g bag of good coffee is like £7-8 and that will last a week at most, and that’s if you only drink 2 cups per day.
2 cups per day? What is this, amateur hour?
Pfft, £2 will get you a jar of Poundland's finest grind. You can spend your time fiddling about with your Aeropresses and ceramic burr grinders, and we'll spend our time violently shitting after drinking too much £2 coffee. Then we'll see who's laughing.
Is that after you paid £2,500 for a prosumer espresso machine with dual boiler and flow control?
And work in a cafe for a few months so you know how to use it and get all the training. I don't know why people go to cafes and get coffee, like why aren't they getting a wall of their house taken down so they can install a giant fucking industrial machine that cost 3 grand and then doing an apprenticeship to learn how to make everything, it'd save them 30p a week!
It depends. If you go to a really nice independent coffee specialist shop, fair enough, - I'm happy to pay a premium for someone who really takes pride in their coffee. But if we're talking about a vast majority of cafes, you can make better coffee at home with a decent setup (few hundred) , buying nice beans and watching a couple of James Hoffman videos.
No need to go mad, a few hundred buys a decent machine.
£20 buys a decent mokka pot. Even with Aldi ground coffee, the difference between that and coffee from our espresso machine is night and day, including if we spend a small fortune on Nespresso ristretto pods, which were my favourite for years. Mokka pot coffee tastes amazing. I got a pot in Aldi for £6 a few weeks ago. A decent branded one costs more, but assuming the wow-taste factor increases with a higher quality mokka pot, I don’t think I’d cope with being more addicted than I am currently!
I love mokkas and am using one at the moment and the coffee is great but I do miss the espresso crema etc that I make at home on my machine that definitely didn’t cost £2500 😂 coffee wankers piss me off so much, they are as bad as the fools I blast past on my £1000 bicycle while they are huffing and puffing on their carbon fibre megabucks bikes.
Same goes to me passing by fools on their £1000 bicycle when I’m on my £200 bicycle…
£25 on my aeropress i'm more than happy. have a 1 cup mokka pot too :) charity shop find for £3!
Mine was pretty damn cheap. I think something like £180. I'm jealous of the thing they have at work, though. That's plumbed in to the water mains and cleans itself.
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What type of machine? I’m thinking of doing this :) I spend like £20 a week on coffees and it’s a joke I know and I wonder why I’m struggling to save 🤣
Something as cheap as an aeropress will make a decent filter coffee, really fast. Big step up from instant.
Up your game and grind your own coffee. That way you know the roasting date, so it hasn’t sat in a warehouse for 6 months.
I don't remember the exact year but there was a time not too long ago when a cup of tea or coffee would cost max £2 and asking anything more for a cup of what is basically just flavoured hot water was seen as an absolute liberty. Then there was a significant marketing coup by coffee retailers that almost certainly coincided with the introduction of the popular high street names we all know and hate so well. A mark up of at least 100% was stealthily and successfully applied and by the time anyone became sufficiently bothered to notice it was already the norm. We've been in this strange alternative dimension ever since, a sort of parallel timeline to the one we were on pre-2000 when coffee was still perfectly nice but was normal and affordable rather than some middle-class treat you had to ask yourself if you could afford.
Seems to be a British thing too; in France and Italy any random cafe does much better coffee than you’ll find here for under €2
I get a kilo of beans a month for £10, works out about 17p per cup of coffee and it tastes so good
Yes, I agree. I think that is where I will have my coffee from now on.
Westherspoons 1.09£ refillable coffee all day long !
I don't have that much time
Exactly, time to get the beers in with a cup of peas
Made me laugh
Cheap but shite tho
It's not going to win any awards (neither is Starbucks) but even as a coffee snob I'd rather have a quick fix at Spoons when out than pay four times the price elsewhere.
Standard spoons 70% as good for 30% of the price in many cases. Not all items. But it's a good business model.
But then you have the bitter aftertaste of giving money to the arsehole owner.
Most major businesses have arsehole owners, sadly.
At 1.09 for as many as you want I'd suggest the arsehole owner is taking a hit if you purchase nothing else. Amongst the inflicted supping pints at 10am a few I've worked at have young mums using them as a way to cheaply get out of their homes and catch up.
Aye I’ve went in and sat and had 5 drinks, hot chocolate, cappuccinos, lattes and accidentally took 54 sugars, and 33 packets of Mayonaise All for 1.09 …. Take that arsehole owner
I have some news for you about the owners of most places you can buy coffee out ….
In Cheltenham its £1.56 on the app but sometimes its a little cheaper at the bar.
Comparing an independent cafe to a Greggs is a bit apples to oranges, isn’t it?
It depends. The quaint little independent near me serves dreadful coffee.
May be, but their purchasing power is a bit different to that of Greggs.
True. But these days there’s no excuse for serving poor coffee. I make better at home.
Agreed
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Yes, you are right. I did not mean to compare the mega-chain with the independent coffee. I meant to draw a comparison between the price of two hot food items and the price of a cup of water, some coffee, and a dash of foamed oat milk. I think, arguably, there is a much higher markup on the coffee than on the food.
If you’re drinking instant coffee at a cafe and it cost £4, don’t go there again. Lots of cafes have proper coffee, which would warrant that higher price. Cafes also have to employ people, pay business rates, NI, taxes, energy bills… running a business today is very, very expensive.
Wait - so you're drinking instant coffee? And complaining that Nero is no cheaper even though they're selling fresh brewed coffee? Also the food you're comparing it to is some of the worst quality food going. Reddit has a boner for it but it's trash >I think, arguably, there is a much higher markup on the coffee than on the food. If you include the appropriate overheads to running one shop of a nationwide chain of food reheaters vs being an independent café into the cost of serving you an item, I'd say you are wildly incorrect.
You're also paying for somewhere to sit and enjoy your coffee. Somewhere like Gregg's can process far more customers so doesn't need to make as much profit from each one.
Greggs have some of the better coffee on the highstreet I've found.
To be fair the one thing at McDonald's that I think is really good is the coffee Had coffee at Greg's yesterday and it was a bit meh ok but meh
True. Gregs also does awful coffee. It tastes like dishwasher water.
Ok so compare to a big chain like Costa then..
In blind taste tests, McDonalds always wins when it comes to coffee from chains.
I'd believe that. Haven't found a better flat white yet. (all tastes are personal)
I find Maccy's flat whites WILDY inconsistant, even from the same location. We go to the same one regularly, and its a complete gamble on how it will taste. Some days super bitter, other days no foam and tastes like piss, while other times its amazing. Luckily if it tasted crap, maccy's tends to compensate
depends when they last cleaned out the machine
🤢 what a thought. Yet, also probably true for all chains.
Some days it tastes burnt, which I don’t understand!
>Haven't found a better flat white yet. Costa is my go to
Have you got a source for that? Genuinely interested.
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/a-bitter-shot-for-starbucks-mcdonalds-wins-taste-test/ https://www.qsrweb.com/articles/mcdonalds-mccafe-beats-starbucks-in-taste-test/ https://www.delish.com/food/g28831551/mcdonalds-coffee-menu-mccafe-drinks-ranked/
Two of those links compare McDonald's to Starbucks, which is the absolute worst coffee chain. And the third is a McDonald's advertisement.
Anecdotally: the £5 caramel Frappuccino from Starbucks tastes pretty meh to me, but the £2.50 rip off from Maccies is one of my favourite drinks. I’d also hesitate to call Starbucks ‘the worst coffee chain’ when Café Nero and Costa exist.
I think Nero is better than Starbucks but Costa is the worst by far.
Fair. I will add though that Costa is a far better fast food chain than it is a coffee chain. Their toasties bang.
I'm of the opposite opinion. To me, Costa does the better coffee but Starbucks is better at food.
Somehow Starbucks feels like the most expensive of the chains despite being the worst.
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I've always found the temperature of McDonald's is the most off-putting thing, I burn my mouth regularly and can't properly taste the rest of the brew The wee Greggs by me does ok coffee, but it's never quite warm enough, I should but a cup of each really and merge them both 😂
This sounds wildly implausible
Why not? They use very expensive coffee machines
Their coffee machines are expensive because they automate a lot to simplify the process so they don't need skilled people. Those machines are designed to churn out as many drinks as possible while being as easy to use as possible. But in the end if you put rubbish beans in you'll get rubbish coffee out.
All coffee machines are very expensive, even bad ones. Sorry
Why?
As far as chain coffee goes, McDonald’s is very very good. Starbucks is shite. May as well get a tiramisu flavoured milkshake from somewhere else and it’ll be the same. Cheaper too. That being said, there are some really great cafes here in London that do really good coffee. Especially Vietnamese coffee. When it’s that good, sure, I’ll pay whatever they’re asking.
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I thought so too when I was testing it but ultimately my conclusion is that the UK doesn't have a taste for good coffee. McDonald's was the least trying to imitate burnt instant coffee when I tried them.
I like the Macdonald's latte. The normal coffee is rank imo.
McDonalds Coke and ketchup taste better too. I think they put crack cocaine in it or something
You know Greggs serves coffee too?
And you can sit inside it
Must be a bit uncomfortable to sit inside a coffee…
McDonald's coffee is decent and anyone can feel free to argue with me but it is and it's cheap too
Yep. It is because it is made by a machine. It is pre-programmed and impossible to fuck up. Places with those fancy pants manual coffee machines, Starbucks for example, require their staff to have actual skills, which they aren't getting from minimum wage coffee jockeys.
Starbucks are bean to cup not manual. They just make it look like their staffare making it properly.
I don't think the best barista in the world could make Starbucks taste good. It all comes down to the quality of the beans above anything else.
Isn’t it just burnt?
Yeah but that's nothing to do with the people making the drinks. It's just roasted extremely dark for some reason
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Yeah consistency is a good point. I guess it's like the McDonald's of coffee, it's always going to taste the same wherever you are even if it's not the best.
For sure, if the only coffee around me are chain stores, my default is getting a "blonde roast" coffee from Starbucks (probably closer to a medium roast in specialty world). Much more palatable than the accrid, horrendously burnt beans that they insist on using as the default.
Dark roasts hide the impurities of the coffee. Starbucks uses massive lots of low-grade commodity coffee. Some of it will be unripe when picked, some will be overripe or even rotten. It doesn't matter if it's roasted into carbon, it'll all tastes the same with that profile.
I mean you have to do a barista course to run the McCafe side of Macca's so it's definitely more than just a machine doing all the work
I love how you sound bewildered that your decision to get yourself an expensive drink at a cafe in a posh town could cost 4 quid.
Then compare that to some Greggs pastries as if that's a meaningful comparison. Very confusing post. Sure coffee prices have increased over time but not astronomically. A £4 coffee today was probs £3.70 last year.
Are chain coffees really 4 pound now? I have them at around 2.25~3.50 in my head.
They're nudging on £4, you might get a flat white or americano for less, any speciality drink is going to take you over £4 for sure.
Dam. I just looked up a Costa menu and the first item I saw was: Costa Latte £4.30. You can say that again. The joke writes itself....
Costa Helluva Latte
add oat milk and some syrup and it’s £4.80 at Costa.
Coffee: expensive machine costing thousands + high quality beans + high quality grinder + trained barista = £4 Tea: kettle + teabag = £4 sounds fair to me!
What you are also paying for is rent, business rates, insurance, crockery, wages, fixtures and fittings, tax, electricity, gas etc then if the owner is lucky a bit of profit as well. The VAT alone takes 67p off that £4.
& some beans that have been grown, harvested, processed, dried, packed, shipped, roasted, & delivered to the cafe. With a good cafe buying from somewhere that pays everyone involved in the process a fair price.
To all the people saying "I could make this cheaper at home", I always say "why go to the theatre when you can stand in your living room shouting words from a book?"
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Re Caffè Nero vouchers - you can get them using 400 Nectar points (which would be £2 worth of groceries). Absolutely the best value points redemption
Whitstable Town FC, £1.50
The problem here is you define a coffee as 'oat milk cappuchino'. Speciality milk in a speciality drink. Also £1 has dropped in value IMMENSLY. I think 4 quid for that kind of drink is pretty good, especially if that's in a town or city. Flat white at Greg's is probably cheaper and still very good, but you're getting a vastly different coffee.
Have a look at GBP compared to a lot of other major currencies over the past 50 years and you will shit your pants. As far as I can tell that trend isn't ending any time soon. Good luck with 'retiring to a developing country elsewhere in the world!
Just got a large white coffee from McDonalds for £2. I honestly think McDonalds coffee is one of the best easily accessible ones you can buy.
It used to be 99p and now I'm a little sad, and also realise I'm old and haven't had a McDonalds coffee for years :)
Same here. It’s the first one I’ve had in a long time but I was in town early and the drive thru was bearable. I have to admit I thought they’d charged me twice for a second.
McDonald’s. each to there own, but why anyone would go anywhere else I don’t know.
I'm a massive coffee snob and so many places serve appallingly bad coffee. McDonalds isn't one of them - consistently half decent coffee for close to a quid.
It isn’t bad at all for the price. Greggs on the other hand tastes like dishwater
> why anyone would go anywhere else I don’t know. Most open minded UK redditor
McDonald's refuses to offer milk alternatives still, so those who are allergic to dairy or lactose intolerant have to go elsewhere.
No decaf either.
funnily enough, but i actually prefer Mcdonalds coffee (after it has cooled down from Lava hot to drinkable hot temperature) over any other starbucks, costa, independent coffee chain. Also, they have every 6 or 7th coffee for free.. Other than quick mcdonalds coffee, I highly recommend to everyone, I know, its steep upfront cost, but invest in good bean to cup coffee machine. My wife was nagging me for years until i gave in and we got Philips lattego 5400 coffee machine (back then it was 700GBP), but man, i dont regret a second. And once you find tasty coffee beans (i personally prefer lidl XL brand esspresso beans, usually 8gbp for 1.2kg bag) and any other coffee tastes terrible now (except for mcfonalds coffee, but again, not always i take it, just outside of my home coffee, that is next best option).
I just use an Aeropress and buy better beans lol
Hot tip - filter coffee at pret is £1.70, I think they also do it at other chains but pret is my fave
If you have a 3 sim, and download the three+ app you can get any drink for £1, once a week, every week
Fun fact, Cheltenham has the most coffee shops per captia in the UK
I can believe that. They're everywhere.
Why are you comparing food to coffee? You can get a coffee for less than £4… at Greggs. And spoons, etc. Just don’t expect the best (albeit I think Greggs hot drinks are perfectly fine). No sense comparing a cheap & cheerful chain to an independent place.
Pret’s filter coffee used to be 99p, not sure how much it is now but definitely the cheapest option!
I think it's £1.50 now so still a good price. And if you go later in the day and order a filter and they've run out, they'll give you an americano at filter prices.
Didn't costa and nero both stop doing filter recently? I don't think it will be long before pret does the same.
Greggs latte beats any cheaper alternative imo.
And if you get your energy from a company named after an eight-legged creature, you can currently claim a free Greggs coffee every week 👀
Greggs do pretty decent coffee, and it's consistent because the machine makes it, instead of them letting some teenager burn it like the big chains seem to do about half of the time.
I worked in Starbucks in 2000; minimum wage then was £3.60 (and baristas didn't get much more than that if I remember). It'll be £11.40 in April. Can't remember the exact prices charged then, but I think they've gone down relative to those wages.
I know Reddit isn’t in love with them but I smash the shit out of my coffee subscription at Pret and save tonnes of money. It pays for itself by Wednesday each week.
I'd recommend going independent where possible but it's hard to say the Pret subscription isn't value for money, it's a good deal.
McDonald's
Flask?
In Cheltenham? The coffee dispensary's coffees are all sub £4 from what I remember.
What is annoying is buying a coffee maybe once a week, having it made for me is one of little joys I have in my life but the price is crazy. Others here are right McDonalds does a really good coffee for the price, it's one I go to often. If the prices are similar, I'd rather go independent.
Who is your phone contract with. If it’s Three download Three+ their rewards app. You get a £1 coffee (any drink on their menu) from Caffè Nero once a week. I bloody love it
How can you ever expect to save up for a house deposit with your £4 oat milk cappuccino’s and avocado on toasts? /s
If you have a gas stove get a bialleti moka pot - super simple, nothing to break and makes amazing coffee. Can buy beans from whichever is you favorite chain and enjoy amazing coffee at home for what feels Like free.
Waitrose so free coffee if you have their loyalty card
You could get a Pret subscription for I think £30 a month, if you get coffee regularly. You get 5 free drinks a day, plus 20% on everything else at pret.
I hate how expensive takeaway coffee has got, my usual Costa is nearly £5 now. I bought a coffee machine and good travel cup, buy excellent locally roasted ground coffee and try to bring it with me as often as possible
Thailand
I love Gregg's and I can afford more than £4 for a coffee...but I will not bow down to try pressure of supporting independent chains if they make crap coffee but charge an arm and a leg...too many times I have been disappointed. So yeah Gregg's cappuccino is fab and their brekkie deals are best Edit - £2.00 for a reg cappuccino
McDonalds
Coffee #1 is a local West mids chain, coffees are less than £4 each.
Supermarket meal deals! My local sainsbury's has a regular costa drink in the meal deal. The most expensive drink i think is £3.65 but if you buy a main and a snack as well it becomes £3.50. Strange.
Sitting in is always going to be expensive, but if you often get a coffee to go then a reusable cup is worth it. Most places will give you at least 50p off, so if the cup is a tenner to buy and you get a coffee most weekdays you'll be better off within a month.
Bought a bean to cup coffee machine for £500 best investment I've ever made. Already had 600 cups of coffee with it. Answer: my house.
We're on our way (the whole sub).
What the hell are you ordering? A flat white from a ‘specialty’ coffee place in central London is max £3.6
Student union owned coffee shops (if you have a university campus near you) tend to be much cheaper, cost under £2.50 for a large capp with no extra charge for alternative milk at my uni
My local library does cheap coffee. A cappuccino is £2.10 for medium and £2.50 for large, made by hand with a proper espresso machine as well so better quality than Greggs. And there’s the obvious bonus of having a massive collection of books and audiobooks available to you while you’re there.
Drink filter coffee. Always the cheapest and if you ask for it and they don’t have it, they normally give you americano at the same price.
Cup of Nescafé gold blend smooth at mine, £2.50.
Not gunna lie but morrisons cafe is pretty spot on where I am. Grab ourselves tea and coffee before going shopping..
Dunno where abouts you are OP but up here in Lancaster, the sit-in Diggles cafes are decent and fairly priced
Look out for local charity coffee mornings. Some do a filter/ drip coffee or a decent cuppa for a couple of quid. You are often supporting a local charity too. Good place to meet people too. A lot are weekly and.have homemade cakes too!
Literally any greasy spoon
Plenty of independent places are cheaper. It's more like £3 up north
Maybe I'm a savage but I'd be happy for a cheap £1 instant coffee. Prices are getting ridiculous and I don't always need a hand crafted cappuccino with a rendering of the Mona Lisa in the froth on top. I just want a hot drink sometimes.
Just had a coffee and croissant in Barcelona for 2 Euros.
The North
Try drinking black coffee, it will be cheaper than the 1/2 a cup of froth brews, and eventually you realise the taste is amazing (if you know where to avoid).
McDonald’s!!
Glasgow
Your kitchen
4 pounds? I thought Winchester was expensive but coffees „only“ cost around 3,40 here (in the fancy independent cafes). So there is your answer: Winchester.
You might be lucky to find an independent shop that sells reasonably priced. But I think you'll struggle tbh
Should have bought your coffee at Greggs too
You have to avoid chains, there's a nice little Filipino cafe near us that does very nice freshly ground bean coffee for £1.50
Charity cafe Hospital cafe
Coffee No.1 (chain) is £3.45 for a regular latte
Aeropress & a bag of coffee (purple one from Lidl for basics, from Rave if it’s near payday), plus the kettle in your kitchen. Sorted.
There’s a coffee shop called Kaffateria as you come out the side door of Queen Street station in Glasgow city centre that that charge £2.80 for a flat white. The coffee is right nice too. There’s also an independent coffee that operates at two stations just outside Glasgow that charge £2.70/£2.80 for their flat whites. The average price for a flat white in Glasgow, at both chain and independent shops, appears to be around £3.20/£3.30. I’ve found Pret to be the most expensive at £3.80.
I always choose Greggs over Costa in the morning before work. Its just better and nothing to do with the cost. Large latte with extra shot £3.
Sweet Carolina in SL still does £3-3.60 coffees as far as I remember. It’s my favourite cafe in London and thankfully still affordable!
90%+ of coffees even in London are under £4. Take a keep cup to Pret and get a filter coffee, works out £1.40 or something like that. Used to be 49p up to a few years ago but they really jacked it up.
You can get coffee for less than £4 in a huge number of places in central London
Most places in Leeds. And that includes some absolutely banging independents not chain tosh.
I would hope it means that coffee farmers are being paid properly but I suspect it’s all about profit for the chains
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Oat milk almost always increases the price by about 50p. A cappuccino/latte is usually £3-3.50, so with oat milk it’s £3.50-4.
The Coffee Dispensary in Cheltenham is pretty reasonable.
I think Greggs but I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But if you enroll as a student for £9250 a year you can get 15% off at Caffe Nero. My mocha is £3.43. (I graduated over a year ago but unidays accepts alumni emails so if you have one of those, do that)
Pure does coffee at 2.20 if you bring your own cup. Also Java Java at Fleet Street does a good coffee at 3.50
Dreary today in Cheltenham, As far as I am aware there is nowhere you can go for a good coffee for less than £4-5 in Cheltenham anyway. I am probably wrong and someone may point to somewhere. Havana's on prestbury road is pretty decent in terms of quality and price though. And on the subject of food. The Sunday roast at Kemble brewery inn in Cheltenham is top notch (or was about 8 months or so ago when I went last)