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Home > Feature Columns > Coffee Chat News > Coffee Prices Escalating at Your Favorite Hangout? It's a Bargain Compared to Russia and Europe

Coffee Prices Escalating at Your Favorite Hangout? It's a Bargain Compared to Russia and Europe

August 15, 2008

While the aura of the previous communist regimes can often be felt in the new Russia, capitalism has created untold wealth for thousands of Russians over the past few years. This is a radical change, and just part of the economic picture in a country where prices for consumer goods are skyrocketing. One vivid example is the whopping $10 for a plain cup of java in Moscow, the high cost for their increasing passion for coffee.

Throughout Europe prices for the world's most heavily traded food commodity are higher than a gallon of petrol, so if you rue rising prices in your neighborhood, feel blessed that a plain cup of coffee, and a substantial 16 ounces at that, is still under $3 in most coffee shops.

In Paris, you'll pay more than $6.75; sail away to Greece, and coffee is higher than $6.60. Prices are screamingly high everywhere but calm has hit a few countries. Buenos Aires is infinitely kinder to coffee lovers with its $2 and pennies for a cup, and Johannesburg, South Africa only charges $2.35.

These prices were noted in an annual cost-of-living tabulation conducted in stores of international standard by the firm Mercer of Switzerland. Research Manager for the Geneva office, Nathalie Constantin Métral, reported that Moscow topped the list as the most expensive city, for the third year in a row, above Tokyo and London. Tokyo coffee is $5 and the newspaper is $1.40 compared to $6 for the daily news in Moscow.

The only US city slotted in the 20 most expensive ones of the survey is New York, positioned at number 22 and the only American city in the top 50. A plain cup of coffee in the Big Apple is a faint $3.75, and the daily news is under a buck. Lattes are more….and yet far behind charges of $6.42 to $8.56 for a modestly-sized espresso-based drink in Moscow which has a mind-boggling 74 billionaires alone.

The survey includes the costs of 200 items involving food, entertainment, housing, transportation, clothing and household goods in more than 143 cities worldwide. It is these figures that help international companies prepare budgets for expenses when their employees do business outside their own countries.

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