For many years, the humble latte has been considered a must-have for commuters who need a caffeine hit on their way to work.
But in recent times, the cost of a cup of java has been steadily increasing, with London‘s most expensive coffee costing a staggering £265 a cup from Shot London.
Another very expensive brew (though not quite in the same price league) is the £16 Colombian ‘Wush Wush’ blend that retails for £16 a cup at Hippo Coffee in Covent Garden.
Queens of Mayfair, in one of the British capital’s swankiest postcodes, charges a similar price – an eye-watering £26 for its Colombian Geisha latte (though there are many more affordable options available.
In 2020, it was thought to be selling London’s most expensive brew, when it offered its Ethiopian ‘Cup of Excellence’ option, of which it had just 15 servings available and was made from rare beans that recently sold for £2,000 per kilogram at auction.
And even high street chains, coffee shops and cafes have seen the price of a simple latte being pushed towards £5 or more.
One of the most popular chains, Starbucks, currently charges £5.20 for a large latte (with extras like syrup costing more).
Danish juice and coffee brand Joe & the Juice, which has more than 50 branches in London alone, and outlets across the UK including Liverpool, Brighton, Birmingham and Oxford, currently charges £4.70 for a large (16oz) latte with regular milk.
This goes up to £5.20 if ordered via Uber Eats in London.
Add in a syrup, say vanilla, and you’ll get charged an additional 50 pence, although unlike many other outlets, you won’t be charged extra for an additional milk.
High-end fashion label Prada’s London coffee shop in Harrods department store, launched in 2023, charges £6.50 for a latte.
Caffe Nero’s is priced at £4.40 for a large latte, the same as Costa Coffee. A large latter at Pret A Manger will set you back £4.10.
But this is before any additions are made – for instance, adding coconut and oat milk to your Caffe Nero beverage will set you back up to 50p.
Syrups such as caramel, vanilla and hazelnut at Costa Coffee, meanwhile, will cost up to 55p.
Patisserie Valerie comes in slightly cheaper at £4.05, with no extra charge for dairy-free milk.
Meanwhile, Black Sheep Coffee sells its standard large late for £4.69, but this goes up to £5.69 for a large Lion’s Mane latte, with non-dairy milk and syrups costing extra.
So why exactly does a coffee from Shots cost £265?
According to reports, staff at the coffee house (which also sells more affordable options) two or three of the top-priced drinks are sold every week, bought by aficionados of the beverage.
The coffee is made from typica beans, a higher quality version of the arabica beans, and have been shipped in from the Nakayama estate based on the Okinawa Island in Japan.
At Shot, the high priced beverage can be made into any form of coffee that would be found in a high street coffee shop. It is available as an espresso, macchiato, flat white, americano, cappuccino or latte.
Ordering a one kilogram bag of the special beans from the estate to the UK will set back ammeter baristas £1,480 – with delivery cost not included – suggesting there is a mark-up on the cup served in London.
Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, a UK barista champion and founder of Colonna Coffee, told the Telegraph that ‘hardly anyone grows coffee in Japan’ because of the difficult climate.
He speculated that this may be the reason for the extreme cost of the beans.
Mr Colonna-Dashwood told the paper: ‘Rarity is obviously sought-after in coffee, and most of the ‘fancy’ coffee people drink is all arabica.
‘Typica, which is what is used here, is not the most sought-after variety of arabica – I’ve never seen a typica that expensive before – which suggests the value is coming from the fact that it’s grown in Japan.’
He added that it was the most expensive coffee he had ever seen, explaining that these expensive collector item coffees are usually sold in bags rather than for individual establishments.
Shot’s coffee has exceeded the price of the Queen of Mayfair’s most expensive option, which previously declared to be ‘the most expensive cup of coffee in the UK’.
It was served for £50 – more than a fifth of the price of Shot’s coffee – and was made from the Cup of Excellence from Ethiopia.
