Would YOU pay £265 for a cup of coffee? Mayfair barista is selling Britain's most expensive brew using beans from Japan's 'island of eternal youth'
- Coffee lovers can find the expensive brew at Shot in Mayfair or Marylebone
Britain's most expensive coffee using topica beans shipped in from Japan's 'island of eternal youth' is being sold for a whopping £265 a cup.
Coffee lovers, who have a few hundred pounds to spare, can find the pricey brew at Shot - a darkly lit coffee shop based in Mayfair and Marylebone in London.
The coffee is made from typica beans, a higher quality version of the arabica beans, and have been shipped in from the Nakayama estate based on the Okinawa Island in Japan.
Ordering a one kilogram bag of the special beans from the estate to the UK will set back ammeter baristas £1,480 - with delivery cost not included - suggesting there is a mark-up on the cup served in London.
At Shot, the high priced beverage can be made into any form of coffee that would be found in a high street coffee shop. It is available as an espresso, macchiato, flat white, americano, cappuccino or latte.
Britain's most expensive coffee is being sold for a whopping £265 a cup being made out of topica beans shipped in from Japan 's 'island of eternal youth'. Pictured: Photograph of a coffee served at Shot in Mayfair
Coffee lovers, who have a few hundred pounds to spare, can find the pricey brew at Shot a darkly lit coffee shop based in Mayfair and Marylebone in London .
According to baristas working in the influencer-haven, the coffee is reportedly ordered 'two to three times a week' and is most often ordered by 'true coffee lovers'.
Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, a UK barista champion and founder of Colonna Coffee, told the Telegraph that 'hardly anyone grows coffee in Japan' because of the difficult climate.
He speculated that this may be the reason for the extreme cost of the beans.
Mr Colonna-Dashwood told the paper: 'Rarity is obviously sought-after in coffee, and most of the 'fancy' coffee people drink is all arabica.
'Typica, which is what is used here, is not the most sought-after variety of arabica – I've never seen a typica that expensive before – which suggests the value is coming from the fact that it's grown in Japan.'
He added that it was the most expensive coffee he had ever seen, explaining that these expensive collector item coffees are usually sold in bags rather than for individual establishments.
Shot's coffee has exceed the price of the Queen of Mayfair, which previously declared to have 'the most expensive cup of coffee in the UK'.
It was served for £50 - more than a fifth of the price of Shot's coffee - and was made from the Cup of Excellence from Ethiopia.
The price of a cup of coffee has been driven up by a third in three years, research has shown
Pret sells a substantial number of coffees through its Club Pret subscription, which costs £30
And Pret isn't the only one, with there being similar increases at competitors. File photo
The unveiling of Shot's coffee comes as the average person is grappling the rocketing prices on high street chains.
Prices have driven up by a third in the past three years - attributed to rising rents and supplier costs.
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A medium latte at the main big coffee chains has risen by up to 30 per cent from 2021 to the beginning of this year.
Research by manufacturer UCC Coffee found that the price of a medium latte at Pret in Buckinghamshire cost £2.75, but cost £3.60 at the beginning of 2024 - with the current price being £3.70.
In Starbucks, the same drink in the same county cost £4 and £3.90 in Costa.
The increase of bean prices is said to be due to climate change in countries like Brazil and Ethiopia.
Coffee farmers in Colombia's Sierra Nevada mountain range say warming temperatures are forcing them to plant their crops on higher ground.
Meanwhile increasingly unpredictable rainfall cycles are affecting growth and harvesting logistics.
The region used to be free of coffee plant diseases but farmers say climate change means their plants are increasingly vulnerable to rust, brown eye spot or borer insects, further hitting their yields.
Production in the area has shrunk by 35 per cent in the last five years, according to the Latin American and Caribbean Fairtrade Network (CLAC).
