Iced Coffee Mark-up

In case anyone living in New York didn’t notice … Summer is here! The clear signs of this are: City being empty on the weekends, the feeling of needing another shower within 2 minutes of leaving your home, and the prevalence of Iced Coffee.

The burning question in my mind, though, is what makes the price of regular hot coffee at $1.00 versus the price of iced coffee at $1.75? Is it the cost of ice? Do these places use freakin bottled water to make their ice? Is it the fancy clear plastic cups? Is it the shelf-space within the refrigerator? Although it certainly doesn’t make sense to me, the most logical explanation I can think of is that due to the ice, in order to fill up a 12 Oz. cup – 75% more coffee is needed. (I’m sure the local corner coffee stand guys have done thorough scientific measurements on this in case you doubt the system)

Just as we have decided that good ol’ H20 packaged in a fancy bottle is worth $1.50 (Rant for another post), it seems as consumers, we have also decided that the mark-up from hot coffee to iced coffee is worth $0.75. And the truth is that if you tried to “beat the system” by buying hot coffee and pouring it over ice – it just doesn’t seem to do the trick.

Speaking of not doing the trick – I firmly believe that 75% of Iced coffee drinkers use artificial sweetener rather than sugar. Although using sugar makes the last few sips of that iced coffee damn good – the fact that sugar just doesn’t seem to dissolve equally throughout the cold liquid versus the hot liquid has made me go back to using sweetener after a 3 year absence. (I’m on a Splenda-yellow kick right now…)

So anyway - Enjoy the empty city on the weekends, make sure you wear an undershirt, and bring some extra quarters for your coffee (with sweetener) this summer!