Credit Crunch and Coffee Culture

The Daily Express, this week published an "alarmist" headline: Misery for holidaymakers: One pound is now worth one euro, saying thousands of families - including those travelling to the Canary Islands for some winter sun - will find the cost of their trip has rocketed - clearly blaming the exchange rate as the culprit.

Even so, relatively, most of the things you're likely to buy, on holiday, will still cost you less in Tenerife than they would in ripoff Britain. "Allowing that prices have gone up here, it's still far better value to eat out and to travel on public transport", says ‘Going Native in Tenerife’ author, Andrea Montgomery.

Let's look at the example of coffee ...

When I left the UK in 1992, coffee in Britain was uninspiring stuff, but as The Independent comment in this 2002 Coffee Special, "Is it really only 10 years since our idea of a good cup of coffee consisted of pouring boiling water over a teaspoon of instant?"

Now 16 years later with coffee shops everywhere in Britain, quality has definitely got better, but prices have risen disproportionately, keeping them well above Tenerife levels.

An espresso in a local (as in Canarian, away from the resorts) bar in Tenerife costs around 90 euro cents. When the exchange rate was around 1.5 euros to the pound, that coffee would have cost the British punter around 60 pence. With the exchange rate having now dropped to a par, it's 50% more, at 90 pence.

However, in a small independent coffee shop in an ultra provincial town in the UK, an espresso is priced at £1.

At the Costa Coffee chain it's £1.35 single and £1.70 for a double shot.

In a provincial branch Caffè Nero in the UK, the espresso is the higher price too, but note, whilst I've said that coffee in the UK has got better (and they are all drinkable), the taste of the Caffè Nero coffee is the only one that I feel really comes anywhere close to the quality and richness of even the most stunningly average coffee in Tenerife.

Meaning, that even though that exchange rate has dropped like a lead balloon, the equivalent coffee in Tenerife is still 80 pence cheaper - virtually half price - than it is in provincial England. (It must be even more in big cities.)

Don't, please, make the mistake of thinking that Tenerife's resorts are "sadly lacking" a branch of Starbucks. Any street corner or roadside bar, wherever you happen to be passing in Tenerife, will serve a perfectly good espresso (or cafe solo) and many more varieties besides. They've been doing so since long before any of these chains were even thought of. Maybe you won't find in them 1001 different flavoured coffees, but then good coffee tastes of coffee!

And coffee is but one example. I've double-checked with our correspondent on the island and the same can be said for restaurant food, booze prices and a whole lot of other things besides. Just as in the UK, it depends where you shop, but in general, prices are always better, provided you get away from the resorts.

Mind you, Andrea informs me that the price of a pint of Dorada has gone up from £1 to £1.50 in the resort of Playa de las Américas. Britain still worked in pounds, shillings and pence last time a pint was that cheap! :) Again, using examples of  very provincial pubs in Britain, I've paid £1.50 and £2.00 for just a half.

"Oh and petrol is back down to 0.60 something a litre now", in Tenerife, added Andrea. So what of the Express' assertion of "misery"? Far as I can see, the only way to be miserable is to stay in bloody freezing, over-priced Britain.

Feed your coffee addiction ...

Some while ago, I read that coffee consumption was overtaking tea swilling in Britain, but a surprising little discovery here is that, even in 1997, the English were consuming 1.76 kilos of coffee per head, only one place and 10 grams behind Spain's 1.86 kilos, in the European coffee drinking league table.  

Now tea breaks turn into coffee stops as 'builders' brew' is being replaced by 'labourer's latte' as Britain's workmen switch from tea to coffee for a breaktime beverage; and a mug of instant is not enough for their delicate taste buds.

So here's another money saving tip: go to one of the big supermarkets in Tenerife; such as Alcampo, Mercadona, Hiperdino, etc, and stock up.

You'll find 250 gram bags of coffee for around £1.25 in Tenerife still, rather than the 3 quid or more that you're paying for lacklustre flavoured coffee in Britain. All of the brands sold in Tenerife have more flavour and less harshness.

NB: Coffee, according to this article, is the "more modern drink". Perhaps it is in Scotland? In England, it's the coffee drinkers who are returning to the traditions of old. Coffee was being consumed earlier than tea, even in the UK. Samuel Pepys used to go about his business or scribble his diary in one of London's famous, 17th Century coffee-houses. (See The rise and fall of English coffee houses and The English Coffee House), while tea was only then just being introduced to the nation, via Charles II's Portuguese wife, Catherine of Braganza. So there!

Permalink | (1) Comments | Post a Comment

 Félix Martín wrote (on January 01, 2009 9:13 AM)  

Hi Pamela, this is Bernardo; Happy New Year!
Take a look at this website:
http://www.classiccafes.co.uk/

I've visited one of those and the coffee was less than acceptable, but the atmosphere was simply fantastic.

Cheers
Bernie