Coffeenomics

How's a financially unstable,college freshman supposed to get some amazing coffee at a not so amazing price? Well this is the predicament I found myself in this year. With a schedule that doesn't seem to have break or end, I  desperately needed a solution to stay awake in Biology. I have been going to Starbucks for many years now but while taking a toll on my heart rate, it was also taking a toll on my wallet. I have a complex order. " One tall cafe mocha, half  whipping cream and half whole milk, with a shot of raspberry," I ask the barista, to that he asks me for a whopping $5-6.The worst part of all this is that I don't even like their actual coffee bean blend. I pay that hefty price for the customization, convenience, and... maybe, kind of , sort of **cough** did like the charming taste.  A phenomenon I like to call the three Cs of coffee connoisseuring; A phenomenon that also required fourth,not so pleasant C; CASH.... and a whole lot of it for an avid coffee drinker like me. I needed a solution! I sat down to do some research and stumbled upon Keurig machines. I knew of a Keurig machine in the commuters lounge but they never stocked the coffees that I liked. I then looked into to purchasing k cups ( instant coffee cups designed specifically to fit Keurig machines). The price seemed fair, around 0.50 per cup, but i still wasn't getting all my Cs. The convenience was there, it made brewed coffee in less than a minute, but the customization and charming taste was still lacking. I realized I had to mimic Starbucks because as the old saying goes, luxury once tasted becomes a necessity.An alternative I found to k cups was reusable k cup sized cups. This meant you could add your own instant coffee into the reusable k cup, and it would brew normally. I could now bring my favorite coffee blend (Nescafe) to the convenience of Keurig. The raspberry syrup I found was also sold at Starbucks, meaning customers could just buy a liter of it from a Starbucks location. The creaminess factor I solved by finding individual sized whipping creams called mini moos. This is what the price came out to for roughly 200 cups:
                           
Ingredient                                          Serving size per cup of coffee                       Price
Nescafe gold 360 g                              1.8 grams                                                      $ 22
Land O' Lakes Mini Moos 192 cups        1 cup                                                        $ 10
Starbucks Raspberry Syrup  1 L               5 ml                                                         $ 12
Reusable K cup                                          -----                                                        $ 4

A little math shows the total to be $48 for 200 cups of coffee,or in other words a mere quarter per cup of your BETTER than Starbucks coffee. So the next you time you go about  tossing a quarter into a well, wish for a Starbucks Mocha.

                                                         

Vs.

1 euro= 1.2 USD