It's hard to get a straight answer on why cold coffee costs more than hot. Photo / Getty
Have you ever been to a coffee chain, ordered a chilled mocha frappé latte cino (or some other similar 10-word-named item) and been mildly indignant when they charge you $6 for it?
It seems slightly unreasonable, considering the only real difference between that and a regular coffee is a handful
of ice (and perhaps a dollop of cream or ice cream if you're feeling saucy).
The economics of cold coffee are in the spotlight this week after a woman sued Starbucks for putting too much ice in her iced coffee cups, thereby giving customers less product. She's suing for $US5 million ($7.3 million).
It's hard to get a straight answer on why cold coffee costs more than hot. At your hipster cafes where they make "craft coffee" the answer is obvious - they tend to cold-brew the coffee for iced coffees, and this process uses more coffee beans. Cold-brew is made by grinding beans coarsely, having them sit in room-temperature water overnight, and then filtering the grinds out to produce cold-brew concentrate. This extract is then cut with water to make what we know as iced coffee.
There's also a good chance they're putting some other bank-breaking ingredient in there, like organic almond milk ice cream. Hence the price hike.
