IT was one of those headlines that makes you check the calendar, just to make sure it’s not April 1.
“London café sells cup of coffee for £50”.
Gulp is my response on confirming that, indeed, it is not yet April.
The Mayfair (where else?) coffee shop is selling what it claims is “the most expensive cup of coffee in the UK”.
We believe it.
But hurry while stocks last … there are only 15 servings of the costly brew available.
If you want to be in the running, maybe you could jump on a budget flight to the capital. A return ticket will probably be cheaper than the coffee itself.
The purveyor of these magic beans is Queens of Mayfair, which was opened by sisters Grace and Victoria Sheppard in March this year, presumably in defiance of poor footfall due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Ethiopan “Cup of Excellence” Queens Coffee being sold by the artisan shop was purchased at auction by Difference Coffee Co, the company’s roaster.
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In this neck of the woods, a roaster is something quite different.
According to Queens of Mayfair, Difference Coffee Co was one of only two companies in the UK invited to buy the coffee at auction.
Think of the hundreds of others who must have been left disappointed.
The rare beans, which won first place at the Cup of Excellence Competition, typically retail for approximately £2000 per kilogram.
Once the coffee has been prepared at Queens of Mayfair – a process that involves the beans being ground by hand – it is served to customers (warning: this is about to get even sillier) in a crystal wine glass. What else, I ask you?
However, there’s good news for the skinflints out there in Mayfair, or those short of a bean or two – the coffee shop states that one serving of the coffee could be enough for two people.
Victoria Sheppard said that the company takes great pride in offering “the finest produce throughout our menu at Queens of Mayfair”.
“To have such a rare and highly sought after coffee to offer true connoisseurs highlights the standards we are aiming for,” she added.
Whatever floats you caffeinated boat, I suppose.
Me, I don’t think I’ll be bothering hopping down to Mayfair. As a child of the seventies conditioned by endless Gold Blend adverts, instant was always the coffee of choice.
When I was a student, possessing a jar of Nescafe was the height of sophistication, although despite my aspirations, I never quite graduated from Willie Low’s own brand.
The advent of the cafetiere was something of a watershed moment, boiling and otherwise.
But I never quite got my head around the takeaway coffee culture.
A colleague once asked me to pick up a mocha-choca-latte-thingy when I was stepping out of the office to the shops. I had to ask for instructions, having never before entered a takeaway coffee emporium. I still messed up and returned with macchiato, which I thought was a dance, but never mind. It ensured I was never conscripted into such errands again.
I might be a bit of a has-bean, but I prefer to remain grounded.
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