How Much was that Cup of Coffee?

Whatever happened to the day of the 29₵ cup of coffee? Okay, okay, I know, inflation had something to do with it. Even so, with 216% inflation over the last 30 years, that 29₵ cup should only be 63₵ now. Yet, the last time I went into a coffee shop, I paid over $4.00 for my cup of Java.

I remember a campaign against cigarette smoking that took place in the 70’s. Somebody had gone through the math to figure out how expensive cigarette smoking was. Their campaign focus was about how much the average smoker could save by quitting. While the campaign wasn’t very effective, it still showed how expensive a habit smoking could be.

Well, guess what, our national coffee habit is pretty expensive too. Let’s see, if one cup of coffee is $4.00, then a 2 cup per day habit costs $2,920.00 per year. Wow, that’s enough money to go on vacation (okay, so I do cheap vacations). Think of the benefits of giving up your coffee habit; all that money you’d save, fewer problems with your nerves; and it’d be so much easier to fall asleep at your desk.

Okay, so maybe giving up coffee isn’t such a good idea. I really don’t think a national movement is going to start on that one. But still, what makes it so expensive? Starbucks closed all their stores one day, a few years back; so that they could use the day for training. From what I’ve heard from an inside source, the training was about how to say, “That’ll be $7.00 for your coffee” without cracking a smile.

And so, the quest for the perfect cup of coffee goes on. The big boys battle over market share, while the little guys seek to beat them out on quality. Coffee drinks get more and more exotic, straying farther and farther away from your basic cup of Java. Who knows, before long, we may not even be able to tell that it contains coffee beans. I can just see the day, when coffee drinks have become so changed, that you can’t even tell what they are. Here are a few which I hear are under development:

• The Kennedy Cup – Gold dust is sprinkled over the whipped cream, making it the most expensive cup of coffee around. They just can’t seem to get the gold to keep from falling to the bottom.
• The Socialist Cup – You have to share half of it with the person behind you in the line.
• The Stock Trader’s Cup – The price goes up and down all day. The trick is to figure out when is the best time to buy and when is the best time to drink.
• The Teacher’s Cup – A miniature .MP3 player gives you a history lesson about coffee.
• The Catalytic Converter Cup – A strip of platinum in your coffee is supposed to remove the caffeine. They just haven’t been able to get it to work yet.
• The Health Cup – It’s actually an herbal concoction, that’s supposed to give you the daily doses of vitamins. They top it with artificial, low calorie, low fat, low flavor whipped cream and a coffee bean (decaffeinated) so that you think it’s coffee.
• Designer Color Coffee – You can pick the color of your coffee; mauve, pink, emerald green, royal blue and lemon yellow will be the first to come out.
• Edible Coffee Cups – In an effort to “go green” manufacturers are experimenting with edible cups. The biggest problem they seem to have is keeping them from dissolving before you can finish your coffee.

The Coffee Wars

A little known and poorly understood factoid about the American Revolution has to do with the consumption of America’s favorite hot beverage, coffee. While most people and all the history books talk about taxation without representation being the cause of the revolution, those in the know realize that it was Brittan’s anger over America’s choice of coffee over tea which caused the uprising.

One merely needs to examine the evidence to realize the truth of this. Why bother making the world’s largest cup of tea (which still hasn’t made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. Instead, Guinness says that a measly cup of tea only 10 feet high and 8 feet wide that was made in Sri Lanka holds the record. Where was I? Oh, yeah, why bother making the world’s largest cup of tea, taking the whole Boston harbor to do so, if the war wasn’t about tea?

American’s were drinking coffee by the barrel full and England was enraged. They sent that boat full of tea over to try and force it down the Colonists collective throats, yet couldn’t do it. Instead of drinking that tea, rebels from Indiana shipped it back home. Unfortunately, the tea didn’t make it, drowning in the harbor.

As we all know, that event really set the British off. The crown couldn’t stand having their precious tea sent packing. So, they packed up their redcoats and decided to give those uncouth barbarians in the colonies a spanking. Only, it’s hard to spank soldiers who hide in the woods. How unmanly of them, not standing up in a fair fight, on the field of honor. Why, the Brits even brought their fancy red coats with them, just to look good on the battlefield.

Well, as we all know, coffee won that fight. The extra caffeine helped Washington stay awake at night, thinking of ways to foil the British strategy. Even today, the fuel of Washington is coffee; drunk by the gallon, in offices and conference rooms all over the nation’s capital.

The true evidence of the win is Starbucks. How many tea house chains have you seen spring up in the good old U.S. of A? No, if America hadn’t won its independence in the first coffee war, we’d all be drinking tea latte. Who ever heard of a tea mocha or a caramel machiado tea anyway?

Many think that the coffee wars are over, but that’s far from the truth. The wars have merely moved underground. The coffee terrorist organization, Starbucks, is carrying the war to the farthest corners of the globe, attacking tea strongholds with their lattes and frappes and other coffee based drinks. It could get ugly before it’s done, but I think that coffee will eventually win out. Take that your highness!