No More Cheap Joe

By John & Susie Pratt in Food on Mar 15, 2005 6:39PM

Chicagoist reads a lot of scary things in the papers these days, but nothing frightened us quite as much as today’s story on the fact that coffee prices are on the rise. Yes, due to a perfect storm of draught and demand, store-bought coffee will rise as much as 12% in price, and there is speculation that gourmet “coffee restaurants” (read: Starbucks) will soon follow suit.

We did try to read the whole article, honest we did. But we were only part way through
our first cup of coffee and so it went a little like, coffee more expensive, blah blah blah, Viet Nam, blah blah blah, abandoned farms, blah blah blah, $4 friggin dollars for a cup of coffee - and that’s when we quit reading. We object to the content of the article on two grounds (pun intended): 1) we don’t like having to think about how much money we shell out for coffee on a daily basis (the average consumer spends $4.08 on their daily coffee run), and 2) we really don’t like having to think about spending more.

As if we didn’t have enough reasons to love the java, Three of the top baristas in the nation (as determined by The Specialty Coffee Association of America’s 2005 United States Barista Championship) practice their award winning technique right here in Chicago. Ellie Hudson-Matuszak, Matthew Riddle, and Amber Sather all from Intelligentsia, took second, forth and sixth, respectively. Chicagoist knows first hand the recuperative power of team Intelligentsia – way to go guys!

Bottom line folks, if you think it’s expensive to fuel your car, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The black gold that gets us through our morning commutes, staff meetings, and afternoon lulls – the one that tastes oh-so-good with a shot of vanilla and a dollop of whipped cream – is going to cost us dearly.