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How Much Does Home Brewed Coffee Cost?

An enormous amount of money is being spent on coffee each year and many consumers are, in reality, spending much more than they realize over the course of the year and even during a month. Though preparing your own joe brings major advantages in terms of control over the ingredients, the portion size, the flavor of creamers being imparted and the quality of the water being used in the first place.

Instant - The Economical Coffee Drinkers Choice

Many instant and valued-minded or generically packaged coffees are surprisingly comparable to the big name brands in terms of flavor and aroma.

Starbucks - instants like their VIa Ready brew coffee, comes in a 50 pack count, can be made at near $0.58 per cup, excluding water and cream.

Folgers - their Classic Roast instant, in 8 oz containers for around $6.30 per makes around 120 cups, which comes to a little over .05 per cup.

Nescafe Taster's Choice - their Instant Coffee House Blend, among a range of flavors, is near $10.49 for a 7.0 oz container, yielding roughly 105 cups at right around $0.10 per cup. Nescafe offers the slim single serving packets as well at around $0.17 per packet in a 20ct package.

Kroger's - offers Value Instant Coffee in 8oz containers for $3.94 which translates to less than $.04 per cup.

Of Note: while some coffee houses may utitlize water filtration systems, the output of many, still don't approach the quality of bottled water. Some coffee shops use straight tap water.

Raw Beans/Gourmet Coffee

With Aribica coffee futures traded on the ICE (Intercontinental Exchange) and Robusta traded in London, the price of coffee is constantly fluctuating. Though to the consumer, sold and packaged by the pound, the price of raw beans varies vastly from brand to brand. Coffee in this form can be found anywhere from $3 to $15 a pound and even greater.

Cost of Preparing

With the coffee itself the main component, other items necessary for it's creation are based on consumers preference and ingredients include:

• Bottled water - which can add $0.12 to $0.20 and more per cup based on the source.
• Creamer - liquid creamer in 50ct singles breaks down to about $0.15 to $0.15 ea. or less in bulk containers. Non-dairy creamer, which many drinkers keep on hand as a backup, is about $5.00 per 15 oz container.
• Sugar/Substitute - at roughly $0.40 per pound for sugar, about $.02 or $0.03 per serving. Sugar substitutes possibly more.

Other items include fixed costs like:

• method of heating water/instant - which you may use for other things.
• grinder - starting at roughly $12.00 for a handheld model.
• drip coffee maker - with basic, lower priced models like the Mr. Coffee 4-cup coffee maker at $19.99 going to more deluxe models such as a $179.99 Keurig. Or you may instead choose an espresso maker for preparing the blend.
• filters - depending on if they are paper elements (about $0.15 to $.20 ea) or reusable filter baskets spanning $5.00 to $12.00 or more, such as for some Cuisinart models.
• a coffee press - usually made of glass and/or stainless, a basic coffee press can be had for as little as $9.99, while at the same time priced a number of times more.