The $8 Latte

Coffee in NYC, and what the $8 iced latte means for the coffee industry

What does the $8 iced latte mean for coffee?

I spent a good amount of time in NYC last month. It was an electric June—the Knicks were working their way through the playoffs on the way to their first win since 1973, and the city was prepping to host the World Cup. I ran into Mayor Mamdani on the street. The whole place felt like a giant block party.

Although, I was not there for the block party (unfortunately). I was in the city for work, which meant lots of coffee over my laptop, watching the block party from a midtown high rise window.

All of these coffee runs led me to a conclusion—the city seems to be in a weird place coffee-wise. I felt like finding a place that did great coffee, simply, was… maybe a bit tricky?

Now, New York has always been a city of convenience. People are highly caffeinated, obviously, but speed and convenience have always ranked highly on the list of what makes a “good” coffee in New York. Price is of course also key.

But with how much the coffee market has changed over the past few years, with consumers becoming more aware of specialty coffee, I’m still surprised to see how many people are drinking Starbucks. But then, I see the price of a specialty latte, and maybe I’m not so surprised.

The $8 latte

In some cases, getting an iced coffee with my breakfast nearly doubled my bill. An iced latte clocked in at over $8. A beverage being more expensive than my bagel was surprising to me.

This is not to say that I think coffee is too expensive right now. In fact, in many ways, I think we probably rarely pay enough for coffee. Coffee, as a global commodity, comes from all over the world. Like other commodities, its production chain is often built on unfair systems, with wages and environmental impacts being undervalued. This is not a new idea, but something I think is important to keep in mind when discussing coffee prices.

Even as someone who has worked in coffee and holds the above opinions, I was still a little shocked to see an $8 or even in some cases $9, latte listed on a cafe price board. This is the contradiction, coffee is a commodity, and its price is affected by lots of social systems that can, and probably should increase costs. But is this a tenable situation for consumers?

And yet cafes are busy, or at least some are. I waited in a huge line to visit Maru, an iconic LA coffee shop that recently opened a location in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The cafe was full, with people drinking coffee with creams and syrups. Even though Maru has an impressive selection of beans, and baristas who certainly know how to dial in a great shot of espresso, there were few people drinking plain coffee. Everyone was drinking these fancy signature beverages, myself included.

I love a signature flavored drink. I love a cold foam. I love that good coffee can be fun, and that it can be an event. But I worry that coffee being $8 is forcing it to be an event. That people need coffee to feel super special, something they can post on their social media, for it to be worth their money, and maybe even their time.

I loved my $8 vanilla bean latte from Maru, but is this where coffee is headed? A luxury that ends up on Instagram stories?

I noticed a huge increase in some crazy flavored coffees: banana pudding, blackberry, and birthday cake, just to name a few. And people seemed to be ordering them. I think the current price of coffee might have something to do with this.

As coffee gets more and more expensive, I worry about the place a well-done cortado or flat white will have in a market like NYC. I’d also argue that this trend of syrups and flavors is removing us from the key reasons why coffee is so expensive: the beans themselves.

If expensive coffee becomes expensive because of the amount of cold foam in it, instead of specialty beans, will focus shift away from ensuring coffee is a fairly sourced, quality agricultural export? As the climate changes, and coffee only becomes more expensive, will people still care about the politics of where it comes from? I’m not quite sure, and I’m not sure there is an answer, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately.

Still a great cup

Of course, I still tried some great coffee in New York, some with syrups and some without, and it wouldn’t be a Coffee in Hand post without a shoutout to one of my favorite coffee shops in the world: Birch.

Birch has quite a few locations in New York (thankfully) so wherever I was in the city, I was never far from one of their iced blackberry lattes. And yes, I did pay over $8 for one.

Birch does all things well—great quality espresso and fun flavored drinks. The baristas in all of the locations I’ve been to have been super friendly and efficient. It’s one of the places I miss most when I’m in London, even among London’s fantastic flat whites and lovely, simple espresso-based beverages (for less than $8).

I had an absurd amount of blackberry lattes during my week in the city. I haven’t been able to find anything like them elsewhere; the syrup is perfectly balanced. It’s sweet, but not too sweet, and is distinctly blackberry flavored. To me, it tastes like summer in a cup.

Taking one on a walk through Central Park is my idea of the perfect morning.

Listen, NYC has some great coffee. And I’m completely aware that not everyone is interested in specialty coffee, or cares where their coffee beans comes from, and that’s ok—everyone has a different relationship to coffee. I just think I’ve noticed quite a shift over the past year or so with flavored, sweet beverages taking up a larger and larger market share as prices increase, and I wonder what this means for the future of cafes.