By buying this expensive coffee equipment I’ll save money….or
something like that.
Yes, it’s a phrase we have all uttered to justify some
obscure, coffee equipment, purchase. A few
years ago I bought a coffee tamp for €70, I justified the purchase as 'value for
money' as I’ll use it every day and have it for the rest of my life, this is true... but I will also have the
other 3 tamps I bought since for the rest of my life! Now, I just buy what I
need (want/afford) and don’t worry about the justification, it’s easier.
This brings me to a point where spending money on lovely, new,
coffee equipment saved me money… genuinely.
My work used to be based in the middle of a bustling town that had
10 coffee shops, all serving reasonably good coffee, times were great. We then
decided to move to a new premise in a lovely new industrial estate in the
middle of nowhere, this turned out to be a coffee disaster. There was a little village beside the
industrial estate with 2 coffee shops and a Spar, the Spar was a no go and the
other 2 cafes were not much better; weak, burnt tasting coffee will not do.
It turned out the best coffee I could get was a 6/7 minute drive away,
this does not seem like much but when you take into consideration the time
waiting for a coffee and the return journey it was adding up to 20 minutes missing from the office every time I wanted a coffee (this doesn’t even include the 10 minutes of arguing
about who's turn it was to go).
I’d had enough of this, I sat down and worked out that I was
buying 3 cups of coffee a day, 5 days a week, 50 odd weeks a year; at €2.20 a coffee
that adds up to €1650, this doesn’t even take into account my time/petrol/other
people in the office. The decision was made; I was bringing coffee making in-house.
After a bit of research I settled for my home setup,
Rancilio Silvia and Rocky grinder, at €600 it was good value. I now have my
hobby in the office, great coffee and each cup costs about €0.20c, I went from
spending €6.60 a day to €0.60 a day, adding up to a saving of €1500 a year (I also
have a new home for one of my spare tamps).
Craig.
