Six dollars is break-even now. For a cup of coffee, that is. For the cafe owner. That’s what the woman told her workmates, at a table I was reading at, outside their offices. A man at the table asked if she was sure that wasn’t just something cafe owners said to justify their prices. He pointed out that when he makes a coffee at home it costs him next to nothing.

“Yeah,” she said, “but you’re not paying yourself to make it, and you don’t have a coffee-machine mortgage.”

What else might you do with that $6?Credit: iStock

He reminded her he has a mortgage on a house. I missed a chunk of the exchange. When I tuned in again, a woman was saying, “It’s no different to celery. If it was celery that cost that much, we’d be debating about celery.” Another, who until then had been neutral, pointed out that she never used to eat celery before she had kids but now it’s her go-to snack, with dip. Someone suggested she try peanut butter.

Coffee – more than celery ever dared pipe-dream – is unambiguously........

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