Greenpoint’s $7 Latte Now Costs $10
Lots of hysterical headlines started circulating when news broke last month of the $7 lakkris latte at Greenpoint’s Budin Cafe, to the point that we got a little weary of the whole thing—you could just not buy it if you don’t feel like buying one coffee for the price of four. Simple enough. Well, the world being what it is, the price of the lakkris has already jumped up to $10 just a couple of weeks after its debut.
Which is insane, of course! That is so much money for a cup of coffee! But the beans in the drink—sourced by a renowned Norwegian microroaster—are legitimately rare, as are the Danish-made licorice powder and anise syrup this concoction requires.
Coffee guru Oliver Strand also raises the valid point that these things aren’t nearly as marked-up as say, the low-quality espresso drinks at Starbucks, telling Grub Street, “Nobody is going to go to the desert and bury a barrel full of money made from selling licorice lattes.”
So really, our stance on this stays the same. Go ahead and try it if you’ve got money to burn and the inclination, ignore it and do something more sensible with your cash if you don’t. In order to maintain any level of sanity in 2014, it’s worth being selective what overly-expensive things we let ourselves get worked up about. This one gets a pass.
Follow Virginia K. Smith on Twitter @vksmith.