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What is the difference between single coffee beans and mixed beans? What is the difference between boutique coffee and commercial coffee? Why is hand punch more expensive than Italian style?

Published: 2026-08-26 Author:

Last Updated: 2026/08/26, It is not difficult to find that in most cafes or coffee chain brands, the price of hand-brewed coffee is basically more expensive than espresso. Common hand-punched prices range from 30 to 50, and some even go to 100 or higher. And espresso coffee such as lattes, Australian white, and American has always been in the middle of

It is not difficult to find that in most cafes or coffee chains, handmade coffee is basically more expensive than espresso. Common hand prices range from 30 to 50, and some even go to 100 or more. On the other hand, espresso such as latte, Australian white and American style have always been in the range of 10-30. So many friends don't understand: "tie! my latte has milk, how can it be cheaper than this water-only hand?" (joking)

OK, I'll give you three seconds to think about it, and then you can check the answer with the front street pair to see if it is in line with the factors you have in mind.

First, the price difference between the two grades of coffee beans mainly comes from the grade of coffee beans they use, hand-brewed coffee is mainly single beans that express flavor, while Italian coffee is mainly commercial blending with high stability. Because espresso has a wider audience and has become a daily routine for most people, compared with the multiple choices of hand-brewed coffee, merchants need to keep a stable taste of espresso for a long time. But coffee beans belong to agricultural products, the taste will change with the climate change of the planting environment every year, to put it simply, it is very unstable to watch the sky to eat. Therefore, we need to find a way to make the coffee beans used in Italian style have a stable taste for a long time! And "matching" is the best choice to accomplish these feats.

By mixing and matching several beans from different producing areas and different treatments, we can not only make up for their own shortcomings, but also dilute the importance of each bean, even if which bean does not have a good performance in the coming year. it can also be diluted because of its importance, and can be replaced and filled with excellent beans from other producing areas. And in order to make espresso without being masked by milk, it is necessary to deepen the roasting so that the coffee has a stronger flavor to "counterbalance" the milk. As a result, the demand for beans has dropped a little. after all, at the beginning of medium and deep baking, some of the characteristic flavors of beans will be gradually buried by the flavor brought by the caramelization reaction. So in the case of less "extreme" requirements, most of the mixed beans will be combined with commercial coffee beans, which is more cost-effective!

Hand-brewed coffee can better interpret the flavor characteristics of coffee beans, so after the release of the concept of boutique coffee, it has gradually become the representative of the production of boutique coffee. Therefore, in the choice of beans, hand-brewed coffee will use higher-level, more excellent flavor of individual coffee beans. And these high-grade, high-quality coffee beans are bound to have a matching purchase price. Therefore, the purchase price determines the selling price, and the price difference between espresso and hand-brewed coffee is clear at a glance.

Second, the price of coffee beans, even if the Italian style also uses high-quality single-product coffee beans, but its price will still be cheaper than hand-made. Because, as mentioned above, espresso has a wider audience for coffee shops, this leads to higher consumption of coffee beans than hand brewing. Higher consumption means coffee shops can buy more beans at a time, so everyone must know the difference between wholesale and retail, and the same is true for coffee beans.

For coffee beans, the purchase price of 500g and 10kg will not be the same grade, so just like the first factor, because the purchase cost is different, it will naturally make a certain difference in the selling price of the product!

Third, the labor time cost is finally the labor time cost! When the ingredients are ready, it takes us about two minutes to make a cup of espresso, while when the ingredients are ready, it takes at least 3-4 minutes to make the coffee. Moreover, it is difficult for baristas to engage in other operations during the production of hand-brewed coffee. Because the production of hand-brewed coffee needs to pay attention to a lot of details, the state of beans, the height of water injection, the time of launching, and so on, all these will make baristas need to focus on the brewing of hand-brewed coffee.

The requirements for the production of espresso are relatively less stringent. After all, the extraction parameters of espresso have already been debugged in the early test. Now all the barista has to do is to put the material in a fixed position and leave the rest to the machine. During this period, we can do other operations separately according to our proficiency in the operation, so the cost of making espresso is much lower than that of hand-brewed coffee. This is why many coffee shops do not set up hand-made coffee, which is time-consuming and time-consuming.

So we all know why hand coffee is more expensive than espresso. It is not only the grade of the coffee bean itself, but also the difference brought about by the purchase cost of the coffee bean and the time cost of labor.

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FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou China, selling freshly roasted beans from its own farm in Yunnan as well as dozens of carefully selected single-origin beans from around the world for both pour-over and espresso. The products deliver consistently excellent quality and great value, with shipping within 24 hours. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers, and the beans are now available online at the Tmall 。