# What's the average price per 250g you pay for beans?



## Phobic (Aug 17, 2016)

*What's the average price per 250g you pay for beans?*​
£5 or less48.16%£5 - £72040.82%£7 - £92040.82%£9 - £1148.16%£11 - £1312.04%£13 and over00.00%


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## Phobic (Aug 17, 2016)

I'm curious, there's a lot of choice out there these days, how much do you usually pay?


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## MediumRoastSteam (Jul 7, 2015)

Phobic said:


> I'm curious, there's a lot of choice out there these days, how much do you usually pay?


I've stopped buying 250g bags of coffee a while ago. IMO, it's not enough to enjoy the bean. By the time you have dialled in, tweaked the grind and do the usual 4g or so purge before a session, there's not much left on the bag 

I usually go for 350g or 500g bags these days.

For a 500g bag, I usually pay around £9 + PP.


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## Phobic (Aug 17, 2016)

MediumRoastSteam said:


> I've stopped buying 250g bags of coffee a while ago. IMO, it's not enough to enjoy the bean. By the time you have dialled in, tweaked the grind and do the usual 4g or so purge before a session, there's not much left on the bag
> 
> I usually go for 350g or 500g bags these days.
> 
> For a 500g bag, I usually pay around £9 + PP.


I'm the same.

250g is a pretty standard sized bag, just stick in what the equivalent would be. Could easily have said per KG I guess.


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## igm45 (Mar 5, 2017)

I buy by the kilo, generally aim for £17-22 blends lower end of that scale SO on higher end


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## Jacko112 (Oct 29, 2015)

With the 12 roaster challenge I do like mixing it up a bit so do tend to order 3-4 250g bags which are normally around £6-7


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Ah the pleasure and pain of espresso ......250g is enough for me drinking 13.5g dose v60's and the occasion chemex, the other benefit is you can swap 60g samples with people and still get 5 brews out of em. Price wise probably sit between £7-9 with some outliers when i see something really interesting as a one off.


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

Maybe the poll should state if the price you pay includes postage. it can often tip the price per 250g just over £5 - mind you the blessed coffee roasting gods at Rave let us purchase their ambrosia - Fudge and Signature blends for just under £5 and will even post it via winged messengers for free if your order hits £25.

Just thinking it would be nice if Rave now sent me free samples of all their coffee...................is that a fluttering of a winged messenger at my window I hear?

Ohhh Deeear


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## Drewster (Dec 1, 2013)

jimbojohn55 said:


> ...................is that a fluttering of a winged messenger at my window I hear?


You might be right - is it a Gloucester Black Spot?


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## Step21 (Oct 2, 2014)

I buy 250g bags but see huge variation in postage rates from free to £3.50 so I tend to look at the overall cost. Recent buys make the average cost of beans + delivery around £10


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

I think more important is the consideration of price in relation to coffee quality. In some respects it's a similar situation to Wine quality and price, except for the fant that the wine markup and overhead costs are phenominal.

Just something to think about....the overall margin added to the cost of green coffee (to cover profit, wages, overheads, roaster, gas or electric, rent, insurance, packaging etc... etc.. Is anything from 300% to 600% of the green coffee cost. usually, but not always the lower margins are used on the more expensive coffees as they won't sustain a 600% mark up.

e.g. Brazil Santos (not a coffee I would buy) might be just under £2.75 per kg on the spot coffee market. However roasted can fetch £13-£14 per kg Allowing for 15-17% weight loss, this is a mark up of 400% Most spot coffee non speciality Brazilians at the moment hover around the 2.70 to 3.10 mark, but this can vary a lot year on year.

So of you want coffee from green beans costing £5 or £6 per Kg, then you would expect to pay £23 to £34 per Kg. you might find a roaster willing to only make 300% on the coffee and sell at £17, but they wouldn't be in business very long. funnily enough a Gems of Araku Mandal coffee was selling for a huge markup by roasters, something like 700% or more and that was for the ordinary stuff. I had some of the very special low quantity Microlots, 3 times more than the cheaper Mandal and I'd have felt guilty selling it at the mark up some roasters were doing. However they were reflecting relative rarity (not quality) as even Mandal has a low production

The minimum I will pay for green beans wholesale is about £5 per kg, and I usually prefer coffees a few pounds more expensive then that. Sure green bean price is not always a final arbiter of quality and you can get some great coffees cheaper, but usually only once, because the importer realises how good they are when they recup after all the repeat orders.

My advise when looking at what you spend, think of the analogy with wine. When wanting a treat....choose coffees that are not expensive because production is low....pay around £24 Kg or more for your coffee to have a chance of greens costing more than £5 and to be true speciality coffee. Funnily enough, I'm not sure my own roast sharers realise how much I am paying wholesale for my greens and how cheap they're getting the coffee.









*P.S. Just to be clear 400%+ mark up isn't bad because roasters have large overheads...so this is not a critique of markups, but to help you realise what you should be paying if you want to treat yourself to really great quality coffee..*


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## igm45 (Mar 5, 2017)

DavecUK said:


> My advise when looking at what you spend, think of the analogy with wine. When wanting a treat....choose coffees that are not expensive because production is low....pay around £24 Kg or more for your coffee to have a chance of greens costing more than £5 and to be true speciality coffee. Funnily enough, I'm not sure my own roast sharers realise how much I am paying wholesale for my greens and how cheap they're getting the coffee.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you for imparting your great knowledge. If we are looking for a 'special treat' what indications other than price should we look for?


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

igm45 said:


> Thank you for imparting your great knowledge. If we are looking for a 'special treat' what indications other than price should we look for?


That's a huge question, that takes years to answer/master. so many things can affect quality. you have to do the reasearch, read up, learn...it's a long process of education and Keeping up with what's happening e.g. bad harvests etc..

Weather that year

Species of coffee e.g. SL varieties, caturra, Catui, Typica Mundo Nuvo etc.. etc.. etc... more than 55 of them (I don't mean arabica/robusta)

height grown and conditions

processing method and quality

Understand the Grading system for that country and international e.g. Triple picked ES, AAA, Grade2, Grade 3, EP, SHB SHG, etc..

Packing e.g. Pentapack, Grain pro bagf etc..

Freshness and when too fresh

main and secondary crop

Rarity or supply shortage

.....and the list goes on.

Even within this there is complexity in each area e.g, a grade 2 washed coffee may not be that good, but a grade 2 dry processed eithiopian may be excellent, because it's hard/impossible to get grade 1 on dry processed stuff from certain countries. Some countries undergrade coffee to avoid duties. Or you might get caturra in a country that's grown without attention (e.g. watering, shade fertilisation) being poor, but it crops well....to a Caturra costing more because it's grown at higher altitudes, more care , crops less, but is far better in the cup. dry processing suits some coffees, pulped natural others, wet processing still others....but sometimes processing methods are used for convenience, not flavour.

Totally unimportant things are *the name of the farmer, his kids, photos of his house and children, fair trade (which usually gives poor coffee), fancy farm names and fancy coffee names.* Coffees where the hand of the farmer has been shaken, he lovingly holds his crops in his small holding, struggling to make a living, doesn't always make a good coffee, in fact it usually doesn't. He is unlikely to have good facilities for grading, processing and his plants may be old as he can't afford a replanting program. His location/conditions may be sub optimal. A much larger farmer without the family back story and 1000s of acres, is quite likely to have good processing, conditions, replanting program (so younger plasnts, etc... all will give better quality.

I remember years ago, one coffee given a name that alluded to taste (in our translation only)...it cupped with one set of flavours (based on various importers), but people were tasting the flavours of the fancy name and not what the coffee actually was. It was also being described with this same flavour by various roasters.

We live in a new society of hipster type advertising and marketing, the big back story, packaging etc.. all often more important than the actual quality of the product. https://qz.com/571151/the-mast-brothers-fooled-the-world-into-buying-crappy-hipster-chocolate-for-10-a-bar/

*I guess you simply need to trust your roaster....and more importantly your taste buds. Try and put the clever marketing and back story aside*.....look at the roast, is it well roasted, even, not scorched. not loads of quakers, brokens, insect damaged, huller nipped and a fairly even size (screened well, but not so important for some coffees e.g. ethiopians). If it's well roasted and great tasting then it's liable to be OK.


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## igm45 (Mar 5, 2017)

Made for an interesting, albeit not surprising read.

I look forward to expanding knowledge of beans as well as processes over the coming years.

I have a couple of 'mainstream' coffee books purchased from Amazon.

Are there any particular books/websites you recommend to broaden bean knowledge?


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## Phobic (Aug 17, 2016)

spot on for both posts @DavecUK



> Weather that year
> 
> Species of coffee e.g. SL varieties, caturra, Catui, Typica Mundo Nuvo etc.. etc.. etc... more than 55 of them (I don't mean arabica/robusta)
> 
> ...


I'd love to hear more discussion on these topics seasonally to understand more about what's happening in the moment, there's no where near enough about it on this forum sadly.


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

igm45 said:


> Made for an interesting, albeit not surprising read.
> 
> I look forward to expanding knowledge of beans as well as processes over the coming years.
> 
> ...


http://coffeetime.wikidot.com/coffee-research-links

http://coffeetime.wikidot.com/gain-files-general-agriculture-network

http://coffeetime.wikidot.com/coffee-links

http://coffeetime.wikidot.com/green-coffees

The GAIN link is not up to date...but it's probably called something slightly different now


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## 7493 (May 29, 2014)

Almost always buy 500g or 1kg bags. Often pay £12 for a kilo. I have paid a lot more and have sometimes been disappointed with the results. Still experimenting but tend to stick with the known and trusted for everyday.


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## igm45 (Mar 5, 2017)

@DavecUK

If you want the up to date link for GAIN:

https://gain.fas.usda.gov/Lists/Advanced%20Search/AllItems.aspx


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

As Dave said , find a roaster you trust and look for stuff you like the taste off . £12 a mile stuff is all fine if you like it , all power to you, the beans they use at Nero and Starbucks will be of a specialty coffee grade , with the roasting fitting there market and how they run their business , £12 a kilo , i can't see how it's anything other than commodity quality coffee .


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

igm45 said:


> @DavecUK
> 
> If you want the up to date link for GAIN:
> 
> https://gain.fas.usda.gov/Lists/Advanced%20Search/AllItems.aspx


Thanks, it's handy for crop information by product and country, but even other data is useful e.g. rainfall etc...


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## cold war kid (Mar 12, 2010)

When I've spent a lot on beans in the past I've often been disappointed with the taste in the cup so I tend to spend less than £7 for a 250g bag without posting, although whenever I go much lower than this I'm often disappointed as well.

I've never really tasted the well known expensive coffees like Jamaica blue mountain and Kona, because I suspect it's hype over substance and not good value for money, although I suppose I will one day.


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## Step21 (Oct 2, 2014)

Phobic said:


> I'd love to hear more discussion on these topics seasonally to understand more about what's happening in the moment, there's no where near enough about it on this forum sadly.


You mean talk about beans and not machines? Don't be daft it would never catch onopcorn:


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## MildredM (Feb 13, 2017)

Maybe one of the advertisers on here (a bean supplier) would be interesting in doing a blog style thread (if that would be allowed/suitable) with a different bean each week or month. In the past I thoroughly enjoyed HasBean's in depth look at beans, how they were grown, processed etc.

It was just a thought - maybe it has been done in the past, maybe there IS a thread (I haven't spent ages looking), maybe it wouldn't work . . .


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

MildredM said:


> Maybe one of the advertisers on here (a bean supplier) would be interesting in doing a blog style thread (if that would be allowed/suitable) with a different bean each week or month. In the past I thoroughly enjoyed HasBean's in depth look at beans, how they were grown, processed etc.
> 
> It was just a thought - maybe it has been done in the past, maybe there IS a thread (I haven't spent ages looking), maybe it wouldn't work . . .


I think you need to be careful with that....seen it done before....ends up not being in the interest of forum members! Better done by people without skin in the game.


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## MildredM (Feb 13, 2017)

DavecUK said:


> I think you need to be careful with that....seen it done before....ends up not being in the interest of forum members! Better done by people without skin in the game.


Yes, I did wonder as I was typing.


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

It's probably worth mentioning that roasters have very different business models. Some are heavily focussed on price for whatever reason that may be (and there are loads of perfectly legitimate ones). Another thing to consider is the quality of final product that you are getting. As an example, I've seen (on many occasions) roasters selling beans that I know only landed in the U.K. a few days previously. They are clearly keen to get first to market etc but in my view it's simply not possible to develop profiles and test them adequately in under a week. For us, we can spend anything up to a month in this part of the process (as some of you will have been on the frustrating end of at times).

Once roasted, beans need some rest and then they need to be rigorously tested to robust quality control processes. This is time consuming and expensive both in time and also in the beans that get roasted but never sold. Last years Rocko Mountain took 8 profiles and around a month for is to get right. For us, that means that particular coffee ended up being more expensive to develop and so our margins were adversely affected as you'd expect. Usually, we get the profile right within 2-3 attempts these days but not always.

I'm not saying our way is the right way, or the only way but consistency and quality doesn't always come easy.

Our new Kenyans are nowhere near a 300% markup either because in our experience, we would struggle sell them at that. Some other beans, we've sold at maybe 500% markup - but as Dave says, this is usually when we have found some greens that are really good but that the importer may not have identified as such. Again, Dave is absolutely right in that importers don't tend to make those mistakes twice!

I suspect ours is like any other business really, some beans are really profitable and some are much less so, we take the good times with the less good times and hope that everything balances out enough in the end to enable us to make a living.

So, we almost always make significantly less profit on higher quality beans. Still, these are the ones that excite us as coffee drinkers so I guess we'll always look out for them and hope that one day people (in larger numbers at least!) will be happy to pay that bit more for something special.


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## Phobic (Aug 17, 2016)

foundrycoffeeroasters.com said:


> Once roasted, beans need some rest and then they need to be rigorously tested to robust quality control processes. This is time consuming and expensive both in time and also in the beans that get roasted but never sold. Last years Rocko Mountain took 8 profiles and around a month for is to get right. For us, that means that particular coffee ended up being more expensive to develop and so our margins were adversely affected as you'd expect. Usually, we get the profile right within 2-3 attempts these days but not always.


this right here is why you get my repeat business time & time again, you produce a better product compared to other roasters, I'd hope that this repeat business helps you in part absorb the margin hit.


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

Phobic said:


> this right here is why you get my repeat business time & time again, you produce a better product compared to other roasters, I'd hope that this repeat business helps you in part absorb the margin hit.


...well, I suppose that's what we hope to achieve. We've never immersed ourselves fully in the wholesale market but all businesses of this kind need to be moving volume one way or another as operating costs are pretty high - so if that's not done by wholesale, it has to be about repeat custom - which only happens if you're doing your thing in a consistent way.


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## igm45 (Mar 5, 2017)

foundrycoffeeroasters.com said:


> ...well, I suppose that's what we hope to achieve. We've never immersed ourselves fully in the wholesale market but all businesses of this kind need to be moving volume one way or another as operating costs are pretty high - so if that's not done by wholesale, it has to be about repeat custom - which only happens if you're doing your thing in a consistent way.


It's great that you've taken the time to join and participate in this forum. Just from those two posts I will be buying from you. Always looking to support those that operate with passion and integrity.


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## Split Shot (Sep 24, 2016)

^^ Interesting stuff (speaking solely as a consumer).

In answer to the OP:

I tend to buy at least 1kg at a time, and look for discounts below the 250g price, free postage threshold, etc to maximise value for money.

After taking all that into account it'll generally work out at £6-8 per 250g, and I don't mind if occasionally it's a bit more.

I think there are some amazing coffees to be had at this price point from the right roaster.


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## Bruce Boogie (Dec 1, 2014)

Gave up buying 250g bags ~ buy the time you get the grind right, the bag's empty.

I've settled on RAVE Signature in 1kg bags and of course even these have a slight variation.

I'm a simple coffee maker/drinker, one a day from flat white to anything else I fancy.

My wife has a large (450ml) Americano with two double shots.

When out we seldom get a better coffee ~ so simple and easily pleased by our home setup.

The poll is a good idea but I can't fill it in


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## Grimley (Jan 18, 2015)

I tend to look for deals when buying coffee beans. I look for codes on here or other forums that I post on. I sometimes take advantage of Rave's discount if my stock is running low. Or, if I go somewhere that has plenty of Coffee Shops that stock beans to sell I'll buy them. The London Coffee Festival (I've been to the last three) I leave with 3 or four bags of beans at least. This year's Festival I pushed the boat out & spent £10 each on 2 bags, normally I'd balk at paying that. I've tried a Subscription for the first time this year (With Bella Barista) They've been OK, I've paid about £7 a bag but I like trying different Roasters. Last purchase was Garage Coffee in Canterbury which I paid £12 for 2x 250G bags. I've rarely buy beans more than 250g at a time Unless its Rave or Square Mile which I've not done for months.


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## Scotford (Apr 24, 2014)

I'm normally quite happy to pay up to £15 for 250g but I tend not to really buy too much coffee these days direct from roasters as more often than not, I'll be in a shop that retails and grab a bag. Last three bags I've bought this way have been £13/15/15 respectively.


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