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Comment by AdmiralAsshat | Hacker News Reader

Counterpoint:

The debate is framed as "$5 a day is a waste--put it into your piggy bank every day and drink office sludge instead".

I instead say that yes, the office coffee still tastes like fertilizer, but I still think $5 a day for a latte is waste because I can make some excellent coffee at my desk for about a dollar a day using an inexpensive French Press, a hand-grinder (or grinding the beans that morning at home), and some whole beans from your favorite hipster coffee shop. And the 5 minutes it takes start-to-finish (1 minute for prep, 4 minutes for steeping) is probably less time than it will take to slip by the coffee shop, stand in line, and get your order.

But that's just me. If they're one of those people who uses the coffee/espresso/latte as a caffeine-delivery mechanism and rely on being a frozen whipped-cream confection with chocolate and a little coffee in it to make it palatable, then my self-brew method won't help them.

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You're exchanging time for money. It's a highly common tradeoff. Prep, brewing, and cleanup amounts can work up to around $3-4 of opportunity cost for a tech professional. Not to mention, french press coffee is not quite equivalent to a latte.

Also, I recommend 5 minutes steeping, personally. ;)

Not sure how much time you save. Standing on line and waiting for that latte would take a comparable amount of time to what it takes me to make my own cup at work.

Getting one during the work hours does seem a bit odd to me. Before work or over lunch, however, seems much more reasonable.

Ok, but even then, surely it takes about as much time?

The time component of having to go somewhere + get your order + get back is mysteriously ignored all. the. time. Not just with coffee, but with making your own food. Like, you don't want to meal prep it takes too much time--but then you probably spend more time overall getting lunch every day instead! Especially if you have the luxury 'need' for variety every. single. meal.

It drives me a little bit crazy.

> Ok, but even then, surely it takes about as much time?

Sure, but it's on your own time, not your employer's time (at least, that's how I read "I have it at my desk").

That said, I will solidly defend the notion that not spending a solid N hours at your desk is a good thing. Stepping away from your desk on your lunch hour, whether it's to purchase a latte, a lunch, or to eat a homemade meal in a nearby park, is a good thing.

But then how will you tell everyone on Instagram that Starbucks got your name wrong again

>Prep, brewing, and cleanup amounts can work up to around $3-4 of opportunity cost for a tech professional.

I disagree. The average tech professional is salaried, not billing hourly. It takes about the same amount of time to fill and plug in the percolator or operate a kurig as it does to stand in line and get coffee made for you. Likewise the opportunity cost is nearly $0 There is no economic rationalization for the overwhelming majority of prepared coffee bought by white collar professionals. It is a pure luxury expense.

Salaried vs hourly doesn't matter that much when looking at opportunity costs. Most salaried folks stick to a fixed set of working hours.

> It is a pure luxury expense.

Practically speaking, purchasing coffee at all is a luxury line item. There's no actual need for it for anything other than the caffeine hit and flavor. At least with a Latte, there's the protein, calcium and calories from the milk.

> Practically speaking, purchasing coffee at all is a luxury line item. There's no actual need for it for anything other than the caffeine hit and flavor.

True, but that's a very deep rabbit hole. We could sit here all day debating what's luxury and what's not.

My counterargument would be that if with automation the way it is, if a regular person can't afford a self-made cup of coffee (or an equivalently cheap luxury) for the flavor alone, then what's the point? Should we all be eating vegan bean paste and popping B12 supplements and caffeine pills instead of consuming nutrients through regular food?

Is that the endgame for peak civilization?

The argument is not that luxuries shouldn't be purchased (they should). In the parent's comment, they put down a latte as a luxury item while upholding their brewed coffee as a better purchase. This was simply an effort to rebut that statement.

I think it’s the delivery method and cost that makes it a luxury, not necessarily the product. A fish bought at the grocery store for $5, cooked at home and served in your kitchen is just food. That exact same fish served in a sit-down restaurant for $35 is a luxury.

>Most salaried folks stick to a fixed set of working hours.

We also browse internet, spend ungodly amount of time on fb/insta/whatsapp/HN/reddit while at work. Taking out 5 mins to make a coffee isn't that significant.

> Taking out 5 mins to make a coffee isn't that significant.

No, it's not. Just as spending $5 on a latte every day isn't that significant either (for the assumed "average tech worker").

That's $100/$200 a month depending on how many coffees you drink per day. That is 4-5 nice meals in a restaurant. It sure is significant for me.

$200/mo applied to a mortgage payment can be a substantial difference in neighborhood.

If we stick with our "tech worker", in that month they have likely earned in excess of $12,000. Even at $200, that's around 2% of the exemplar employee's earnings.

If $200 is a significant amount that you don't want to spend, that's completely fine. But it's also not that much when you look at it, even as a leisure purchase.

Lol, not every tech worker works in SF/NYC. I work in Toronto, make more than what an average family in Canada makes, and still am no where close to $12,000/month before tax, forget about after tax.

I prefer a clever dripper to a french press. Much less cleanup... toss filter and grounds in the trash in one fell swoop, rinse once or twice under some water in the sink, done.

On the other hand, I much prefer a latte to any pour-over or french press coffee, maybe it's the steamed milk, I'm not sure. I don't mess with latte's at home anymore. I've had two <$200 machines wear out on me and it's too much work for something not nearly as good as a local shop.

Having used both, cleaning the french press is not a lot more work than a pourover device. Swirl some water, throw out on a patch of grass or flower bed, rinse, done.

Of course, if you don't have a handy grounds disposal spot, there will be some additional issues.

Doesn't work in an apartment, have to either scoop out the solids into a trash can or fill with some water and pour out into the toilet bowl and flush. It can get messy.

Except that the $5 fancy latte also works up to at least 5 minutes to get.

Not that I think it has anything to do with the point of the article.

I don't know about you, but it usually takes me less time overall to make coffee at home than to get it at a coffee shop or gas station once I factor in travel time.

Going to a coffee shop takes time too

If you make your coffee at work you save money and waste your employer's time, not yours. Win win.

Eh, often hard pressed to make an argument for time considering the detour to pick up the coffee, waiting in line. Brewing at home takes mere minutes. Convenience, sure. You just pay, then drink.

Then again I see the mentality in some tech professionals wanting to eliminate every little "inefficient" use of time including food prep so they can park their ass longer. I guess it's individual.

For myself it's a mental health cost. We have a shared office but only go 2-3 times a week. The coffee shop allows me to be in a social environment away from home.

See, I think this misses the point.

Going for a coffee or going out to lunch aren't just about labor, it's about a bunch of things. It's getting out of the office, even if it's just down to a storefront on the first floor. It's five minutes when the odds of someone bugging you are much lower. It's a ritual, and maybe a little exercise. It's not about a purchase. That's just the cost of the experience, and it's worth $5 to people.

I often wonder how much the incidence of smoking was influenced by this. I worked at a place where there was a lot of pressure from the bosses for ass-in-seat time and they'd make petty little comments about people going for a walk or getting coffee or Heaven forbid, leaving at 5 pm! But we had 2 or 3 smokers and they never once complained about them going outside for a cigarette. Which took just as long as getting a coffee. And because nobody wanted to stand in a cloud of smoke it was even more effective as a break than going for coffee, where you might run into a coworker or worse, a customer.

>You're exchanging time for money.

I have never gotten fast coffee and thought- Driving/walking here, waiting in line, paying, and waiting for my order is faster than homemade Drip Coffee.

I think you are reading too much into what is supposed to be an intrinsically silly example. For instance, I pay $1.25 for a large coffee nearly every day from my favorite hipster coffee place for a good organic coffee every lunch. Yet I still am barely scraping by with a very high salary for the area that I live in, and I'm still barely able to actually save. If I didn't buy the coffee at all or if I liked sugary confection-coffees that cost $10 a day, it makes literally no significant difference in my coming any closer to owning a home.

I have an aeropress and use a grinder and buy "hipster" coffee shop beans. I use a french press to make the froth. I love the latte I make. However, I still spend an awful lot on lattes. 1) I like variety 2) It's not practical to this at the office kitchen and office coffee sucks. 3) I like getting out of the office and for some reason "getting coffee" is an easy way for me to that.

Also, on the broader point - savings do matter. It's like trying to lose weight. You can't lose weight by simply working out and not making any changes to the diet. However, having to control all these impulses and every little temptation, is taxing on the brain. I can only speak for myself here, it affects my cognition. I can splurge a bit and free up my mind to focus on the things that matter more. It's taxing to always stay in control and trying to optimize every single thing.

And you can cut the fat out of your caffeine consumption too, both in time and money. I take caffeine pills now over coffee (mostly to combat coffee breath and the guaranteed poop 20 minutes after drinking). 200mg, equal to a grande I figure, 5 cents a pill, and maybe 20 seconds to plop one into my hand then my mouth.

The speed and price is a boon for me, but also how compact the dose becomes. I can take it anywhere whenever I need it with just my palm; no need to plan for a coffee break. If coworkers are going out after work, I'll take one at 5, then stick a couple in my back pocket to keep the night fueled 4 hours at a time. When I wake up early for a morning run, I'll take one and hit snooze and fall back asleep, then by the time the alarm finishes snoozing I awake already caffeinated and eager to run at the crack of dawn. In college I would take one in the middle of lecture if I started to nod off. Really changed my life.

That's cool but you miss out on things like quercetin:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019745801...

Maybe for some, but French press != espresso drinks; a really well-made cappuccino or latte is something that requires equipment and attention to detail that isn't practical for small office use.

In my office, I don't have pretty Baristas making the coffee for me, and I also can't bask in the sunshine watching the passersbys.

The amount of time people are willing to spend waiting in lines continuously amazes me.

And for food and drinks, no less.

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