By FrankMost Dutch people drink more than one cup of coffee a day, and no matter how often they hear how unhealthy it is – too much coffee – it remains a stubborn habit. So we should all just make the best of it, right?
How much does a cup of coffee cost?
If you buy several cups of coffee a day from your favourite joint, you will probably notice at the end of the month how much money you spend on it. After all, the average price for such a cup of coffee-to-go can be anywhere between €2.50 and €3.50. And if you are a real coffee fanatic, you will pay an extra euro for that special flavour or brand of coffee. It adds up nicely.
The price for a cup
Even if you regularly make coffee at home, it can cost quite a bit of money. Maybe it’s something you want to cut back on or maybe, like me, you just find it interesting to delve into how much money you actually spend per week, month or year on your coffee addiction. You may well be shocked and find yourself on coffee rationing, but I hope not. Let’s take a look at the price per individual cup.
- Filter coffee – per cup you pay around €0.08
- Beans – per cup this costs €0.10
- Senseo – coffee from this machine costs €0.14 per cup
- Dolce Gusto – this Italian coffee costs €0.32 cents
- Nespresso – a whopping €0.43 cents per cup
This is the price for just the coffee beans, cups or pads and not the water. It also does not include the price of the coffee machines you need. So if you make coffee with an expensive fully automatic coffee bean machine, you will pay quite a bit more anyway.
Depending on coffee machine prices
So the price of a cup very much depends on the purchase price of coffee machines – somewhere between €30 and €1500 per machine. The lifespan of such a coffee machine also counts. You will also need to clean and descale a coffee machine regularly. Especially if your water in the house is hard and you use the machine often, you will have to go after it regularly.
The purchase price and the lifespan
If we calculate the lifespan of a coffee machine, you will see that the price of cups of coffee suddenly doesn’t differ that much at all. Here briefly the average purchase cost of a coffee maker for..
- Filter coffee – a coffee maker costs an average of €75
- Beans – a semi- or fully automatic machine can cost up to €800
- Senseo – this device costs little, only €50 on average
- Dolce Gusto – comparable, also €50,-
- Nespresso – also not expensive, €70,-
This means that in the end, with a coffee maker, you only spend about eight to nine euro cents per cup, making this the cheapest way of making coffee. We skimpy Dutch people therefore predominantly use this method.
Health and health costs included
Coffee in itself is not unhealthy, but there are some preparation methods that are less good for health. Experts and scientists have researched and found that filter coffee is also the healthiest because it is well filtered. If we include health costs, the cost of your ‘deductible’, then it is totally cheap to drink filter coffee.
Opportunities to save
Of course, you can still save on the brand of coffee you buy. Or you can look for offers when you buy a new machine or coffee maker. If you really want to save money, buy a thermos cup and brew your filter coffee for lunch at home in the morning in your own coffee machine. That will easily save you dozens of euros a week.