How much does making coffee at home cost?

The bean cost is the easy part and it is smaller than people expect.

Beans

A 250 g bag of good specialty coffee costs 8 to 15 euros and makes roughly:

• 14 double espressos at 18 g each
• 16 filter brews at 15 g each

That works out at roughly 50 cents to a euro per drink for specialty coffee, and 25 to 40 cents for good supermarket beans.

Capsules

30 to 70 cents each for Nespresso Original compatibles, 45 cents to a euro for Vertuo, which is single-source.

So capsules run two to four times the bean cost for the same drink, permanently.

The machine, amortised

A 600-euro setup over ten years and two drinks a day is about 8 cents a cup. Over three years it is 27 cents.

Machines are cheaper per cup than most people assume, provided they last — which is the argument for filtering the water.

Consumables

Descaler, cleaning tablets, filters and paper: roughly 40 to 80 euros a year, or 5 to 10 cents a cup.

The comparison

A cafe flat white is 3.50 to 5 euros. At two a day, home brewing pays back even an expensive setup within a few months.

That is the honest arithmetic, and it is why the machine price matters far less than most buying guides suggest.