What a cup of coffee really costs at home

A cup of filter coffee at our café is ₹60. People often ask how much the same cup costs to make at home. Here is the arithmetic at our current prices.

Our house filter blend is ₹460 for 500 g. A strong decoction for two cups uses about 25 g of coffee, so 12.5 g a cup, which comes to about ₹11.50. Add 120 ml of milk at around ₹6 and a spoon of sugar at less than ₹1, and a home filter coffee costs about ₹18. A family drinking four cups a day spends roughly ₹2,200 a month.

Pour-over with single-estate coffee costs more per cup because it uses more coffee and better beans. Our Baba Budan peaberry is ₹520 for 250 g. At 15 g per cup, that is about ₹31 a cup, black. For espresso, our 1 kg espresso blend at ₹1,690 makes about 55 double shots at 18 g each, so ₹31 a shot before milk.

Equipment is the other cost, but it lasts for years. A steel filter costs a few hundred rupees, our ceramic dripper with filters is ₹1,450, and a decent hand grinder is about ₹3,000. Over a year, the grinder works out to less than ₹10 a week. The cheapest way to waste money on coffee is to let a bag go stale. Buy what you will finish within four to six weeks of the roast date printed on the bag.