How Much Does Good Coffee At Home Cost?

We often get asked ‘How much does it cost to brew good coffee at home?’

The simple answer is a good coffee at home costs a lot less than you’d think. But this is a Two Chimps blog, so the simple answer alone ain’t gonna cut it.

We’ll break this down in a few different ways. First, a raw comparison on price assuming you have a way of making the coffee. We’ll use the humble Americano as our case study – it’s a pretty straightforward drink to replicate, requiring no faffing around with steamed milk.

Next, we’ll look at a few different brew devices, how much they cost, and how many home coffees you’d need to make before the devices pay for themselves. Then we’ll make a quick pit stop in grinder town (which is the one where coffee beans get crushed and nothing else happens) before finishing off with the full combo of grinder plus various brew devices.

So, get a brew on, kick back and prepare for some below GCSE-grade coffee maths done by a chimp in a roastery.

Tu vuò fà l’Americano?

The Americano is a staple of coffee shops around the world. It’s a simple drink – make some espresso, add a little hot water, and Roberto è tuo zio.

Some say the origins of the Americano go back to the second world war. American GIs stationed in Italy wanted something similar to the filter coffee drunk back home, so diluted classic Italian espresso with water, thus creating the Caffè Americano or American Coffee. However, references to this Caffè Americano can be found that predate this, so who really knows?

What we can say for certain is the recipe is dead easy to replicate, or as we’re going to do, approximate. The point of the Americano is trying to mimic a filter coffee by adding hot water to espresso, so we’ll compare it to a homemade filter coffee.

How much does a V60 coffee cost?

There are many ways to make V60 coffee and a lot of V60 brew ratios. At Two Chimps, we recommend starting out with 20g of coffee to 320g of water, so that’s the ratio we’ll use for this comparison. 20g of coffee means you get 12-and-a-half V60 coffees from a 250g bag. This equates to 71p per coffee.

The average high street Americano costs about £2.22, a difference of £1.51. If you currently drink a store-bought Americano five days a week and switch to homemade V60 brewing, you’ll save yourself £392.60 a year!

How long will my V60 take to pay for itself?

You can pick up a V60 in the Two Chimps store for £10. If you’re saving £1.51 per cup, then the seventh time you replace a high street Americano with a homemade V60 coffee, your device will have paid for itself!

I’ve heard about this AeroPress thing?

Invented by Alan Adler, the man behind the Aerobie, the AeroPress is an unusual brewing device that looks a bit like a syringe full of coffee. If you’re curious, we’ve got more than a few blogs on how to get the most out of your AeroPress.

For now though, let’s focus on the coffee maths. Like the V60, there are tons of ways to brew with the AeroPress. We recommend a ratio of 15g of coffee to 240g of water, so we’ll use those figures. With these ratios, a cup of Two Chimps AeroPress coffee will set you back just shy of 54p, saving you £1.68 per cup.

An AeroPress in the TC store will set you back £32. So, your new AeroPress will take just over 19 days to pay for itself. Not at all bad for one of the most famous pieces of modern brewing kit!

If you’ve already got one, you’re saving yourself £418 a year! Nice.

What about my stovetop Moka pot?

If you don’t know what a Moka Express is…where have you been!? Don’t worry though, this helpful guide will tell you all about it. There are many different sizes and brands, but for our purposes, we’ll use a one-cup. There’s a bit of variation in how much coffee goes into a Moka. We’ll say 8g for the purposes of this comparison, which means a one-cup Moka makes a 29p cup of coffee, saving you £1.99 per cup versus an Americano. The value!

You can pick up a Moka in our webshop for £31, meaning 16 coffee-making days after your purchase, your Moka has paid for itself. Thanks, Alfonso.

You can get us to grind it for you, but there’s nothing better than freshly ground coffee

At Two Chimps, we have a mantra – ‘Awesome Coffee. No nonsense.’ If it weren’t that, it would be ‘fresh is best’. That’s why we roast in small batches and offer free 1st class tracked delivery when you spend £25 . As any good roastery should, we have some serious grinders here and are always happy to grind your coffee to suit your brewing method. But we know the best way to make coffee at home is by grinding whole beans right before brewing.

Enter the Hario Skerton Hand Coffee Grinder. Built by legendary coffee equipment maker Hario, this grinder can grind for any device and holds 100g of ground coffee, making it a seriously versatile bit of kit. Because of this versatility, the maths can get complicated. But here goes…

Retailing at £40 in the TC store, assuming you’ve already got a brewing device, your grinder pays for itself in 27 days for a V60, 24 days for an AeroPress, and 20 days for a 1 cup Moka. Bargain!

If you’re starting with nothing, the grinder plus a device will pay for itself in 33 days for a V60, 43 days for an AeroPress, and 36 days for a 1 cup Moka. Plus, you’ll have delicious, ultra-fresh coffee on-demand.

Speaking of on-demand, get a Two Chimps subscription and not only will you always have great tasting speciality coffee in your tin, but with our subscriber discount your kit will pay for itself even quicker!

The only question left to answer is ‘What are you waiting for?’ and I can’t answer that for you 😉

Happy (and economical) brewing!