There was a time, long ago, when coffee was just a beverage. A simple, humble drink, extracted from the beans of a tropical shrub, ground into a fine powder, and brewed into an elixir that made life marginally more tolerable. People drank it in the mornings, they drank it after dinner, and they sometimes—though rarely—drank it in the mid-afternoon, if they had lost the will to live but needed to attend a meeting.
That was before coffee became a financial asset, an item of luxury, and possibly the driving force behind a sinister global cartel.
The Cartels Are Coming for Your Cappuccino
The other day, at a luncheon where the chicken was overcooked but the conversation was lively, a guest informed me, with all the delicacy of a Swiss diplomat, that her son was investigating coffee cartels in South America. Coffee cartels! I nearly choked on my overpriced espresso. Imagine shadowy figures in Panama hats, sitting around mahogany tables, whispering about the next price hike while stroking pet toucans.
“Oh, coffee is a drug,” she added, as if I hadn’t already suspected it.
A drug, you say? That would explain a lot. The euphoric highs, the crushing dependency, the existential despair when you realise your favourite blend has just gone up another ten rand. Coffee drinkers have, in fact, become the perfect addicts—willing to pay any price for their next fix, nodding solemnly when the barista explains that the beans were harvested by hand, by monks, during a lunar eclipse, using only the light of a dying star.
The Price of a Caffeine Habit
Let’s speak plainly: coffee is now so expensive that it may soon be classified as an investment. A couple of years ago, you could still get a decent cup for 15 to 20 rand, which felt reasonable. A little steep compared to home-brewed coffee, which cost about a rand a cup, but still within the range of human decency.
Now? Now you pay more than 100 rand for a bag of 250 grams. I remember when coffee broke through the 25-rand barrier. I laughed. I scoffed. “Ridiculous!” I thought, as I handed over my money anyway. Now it’s creeping toward 150 rand, and all I can do is stare at the price tag with the vacant expression of a man who has just been told that oxygen will soon be metered.
For comparison, a two-litre bottle of Coca-Cola costs 22 rand. That’s enough liquid to keep an entire family awake and jittering for days. Meanwhile, a cappuccino—a cup of coffee with some milk—is approaching the price of a small meal.
A Time Before Madness
In July 1985—brace yourself for this—I know exactly how much coffee cost. I have sources that will not be found on the internet. In those days, coffee for an entire month cost three rand. Yes. Three rand. Not three hundred, not three thousand—three. Pause for a moment and contemplate this injustice.
Of course, back then, people also thought jogging was a hobby and telephones were attached to walls, so perhaps we were all too naïve to see what was coming.
Are We Even Sane?
What do we do with this knowledge? Do we quit coffee? Start drinking tea with apple crumble like civilised people once did? Do we attempt to grow coffee plants in our backyards, whispering to them at night, coaxing them into producing beans before the next price increase?
Or do we simply accept that, like petrol, rent, and the cost of dignity, coffee will continue to rise until one day, in the not-so-distant future, we will need to take out bank loans to afford a single espresso?
But perhaps there is still hope. Perhaps, in a dimly lit laboratory somewhere deep in China, a scientist is even now working on a synthetic coffee substitute, a lab-brewed marvel that tastes like the real thing but costs only a few cents. Will it be safe? Who knows. But at least it will be affordable.
Until then, enjoy your coffee while you can still afford it. Or at least, try not to splatter it when you see the next price increase.
