In July at Allen & Company’s annual Sun Valley conference — “billionaire summer camp” — Warren Buffett’s wife Astrid was overheard complaining about the price of a $4 cup of coffee. And who could blame her?
We are all Astrid.
What’s more: the $4 cup she ordered was the cheapest item on the menu at Konditorei in the posh ski town. Buffett remarked, allegedly, that she could buy a pound of coffee for that price.
On a fifty year basis, the worldwide price of coffee is actually flat. In late 2019, it was just under a dollar a pound. Over the course of the pandemic, the price nearly tripled. And that’s before you count baristas spinning the iPad around for a tip.
Inflation isn’t the only story in what I call Coffee Shop America. Far from it. In fact all the trends in our country — whether trial or triumph — can be found in Coffee Shop America.
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