|
|
|
|
|
Java Gouging: the Cost of Cold vs. Hot
(Rant: September 2005) So summer has
ended and my choice for an afternoon coffee will soon revert from a large
iced-coffee to a large regular hot coffee or a chai latte. It’s a
venti, if ordered at Starbucks—which gets a large bulk of my afternoon
business. But every time I
ordered a venti iced-coffee, the price is $2.73, yet the regular hot coffee
is $1.89 for the same venti. Now venti means twenty in Italian (as in twenty
ounces) but the iced-coffee comes in a bigger cup—twenty-four ounces I
learned. Could that four ounces really be worth an extra dollar? If you watch
the coffee backs as they fill the cup ½ way up with ice and then pour in the
coffee, it actually looks like your getting less than twenty ounces of java
for your extra dollar. So I asked a friendly coffee clerk. “It’s twice as strong,”
the cute goth beamed. So if I get this right, I get twice as much potency in
half as much fluid for more money? Sounds like an even trade off that should
cost the same. When I got to Pete’s, I get a large iced-coffee for the same
price as a regular large hot coffee, and it tastes just as potent as
one from ‘Bucks. So what’s it all mean in the scope of life and caffination?
Probably nothing. My habits won’t change. I’ll go to ‘Bucks next summer for
venti iced coffees and pay that hard-to-comprehend surcharge, just as I did
this summer and summers past, but at least I’ll be an informed consumer. Now
if I could only get my mind around why they call a small a tall… - TBM |
|
|
|
|
|