Coffee: Are we being ripped off?

Wellington woman Lisette Prende says she’s struggling to keep on top of her coffee habit.

‘‘I went decaf but I am still emotionally attached to coffee. I try to tell myself ‘if you quit you could pay for a trip to Bali in a year’ but still I get a $5 decaf cappa. And if the barista screws it up it feels like money-saving karma.

‘‘My uncle who runs cafes told me once that it cost the cafe around 70 cents a coffee. Not sure if that’s correct but whoa. Cha-ching. That’s a profit.’’

She might be pleased, then, that she’s not buying coffee in Copenhagen, where new research shows the world’s priciest Starbucks coffees can be found.

Finder has compared the cost of a tall Starbucks latte in 76 cities around the world.

Wellington ranked 45th. Copenhagen was top of the list at NZ$9.42 and Turkey at the bottom, at NZ$2.77. New Zealand was just behind New Delhi, India, but ahead of Toronto, Sydney, Prague and Milan.

Another Wellingtonian, Frank Wilson McColl, said she marvelled at the cost being as low as it was. ‘‘When I think of all the things that get my cup to my lips – planting, growing, harvesting, drying/ curing, packing, shipping, roasting, grinding, extracting. isn’t it crazy it’s only $4?’’

Finder said it should be expected that coffee prices would be higher in wealthier countries and lower in poorer countries. Factors affecting the price would include the cost of raw materials, production and labour, taxes, tariffs and retailer pricing strategies.

Gareth Kiernan, chief forecaster at Infometrics, said it was similar to the Economist’s Big Mac Index, which compares the cost of the McDonald’s burger in US dollars around the world. That index ranks us 14th most expensive for the price of a Big Mac.

But he said while the ingredients for a burger were more likely to be sourced closer to home, coffee only came from certain parts of the world.