New Year goodness! Chinese New Year is here. Red is everywhere, luck is in the air, and family reunions are abundant. We already took some time recently to discuss our year at Hook, so today we are going to focus a bit more on some practical new year resolutions. Drinking better coffee and saving cash  Picture this: You walk into a café before work. The smell of coffee fills the air. The line is long. The person behind you is coughing up a storm. People are talking loudly at the table beside you. You walk up to the register and order a coffee to go. The cashier hands you your coffee and you give her five dollars or so, and then you frantically walk out of the café and on to work. While this scenario may not be a common one of yours, many people incorporate a similar routine into their day. Coffee and mornings go together like sun and the beach; cafes and coffee are integral to the coffee lover’s day. Maybe you can guess what we are going to say next: something akin to “instead of going to cafes, drink our coffee at home!” or, “cafes take time out of your morning.” This isn’t quite the case however. We are going to make points that the quality coffee experience can be enjoyed in a cheaper fashion, but we aren’t bashing cafes or specific morning routines. Cafes can be great places to unwind and start your day. Many people enjoy visiting coffee shops and that’s okay. This article simply analyzes the fiscal reality of the coffee lover. Saving money… A lot of money If one was to visit a café every working day of the year, spending an average of five dollars each visit, $1300 would be spent. Making this situation a bit more realistic, let’s subtract ten weeks for holidays and such. That still leaves us with $1050 being spent a year on coffee. For some people, this cost seems reasonable… But for most, spending over $1000 on coffee seems absurd! Even the most avid of coffee bon vivants can agree that $1000 is a substantial sum of cash. Let’s say you found a thousand bucks buried in the ground somewhere. What would you do with it? You could go on holiday! You could invest it, you could go out for a fancy dinner or two, or you could even fund your daily commute. The point is that a thousand dollars is a lot of money. But we can’t give up coffee. As a human race, we simply cannot. The price of cutting out coffee is way too high! Coffee has become a need for the masses. So, must we give up the travel and holidays for coffee? No. Here’s why. If one was to substitute their café coffee with Hook’s single serve drip coffee, they would save an average of $3.60 a cup.

Hook single serve coffee bag = $1.40 average cup of coffee from a café = $5.00 total saved = $3.60

This means that you could save $756 dollars by drinking Hook coffee if we apply the same numbers from before. And bear in mind, this is only considering that you drink 1 cup of coffee a day, most of us drink way more than that. Hello holiday. Hello investing. Hello money. Price vs. Coffee Quality Saving over $700 by drinking our coffee sounds sketchy. I mean, that’s a lot of money. Surely café coffee is tastier and more sustainable, right? Well, no. Again, we aren’t bashing the café or other coffee purveyors. We love our coffee community and hope that they flourish. What we are saying is that our coffee is damn good, and sustainably sourced. We not only meticulously roast our beans, abiding by specialty coffee standards and practices, but we also abide by direct trade policies. Direct Trade means that we directly work with the farmers that grow the coffee we roast daily. In other words, we develop relationships with them. With direct trade, farmers earn 10-25% more. Because the farmers are paid well, they can support their craft – this means that the coffee tastes better, the children of the farmers can go to school, and their overall standard of living is improved. By drinking really good coffee, you can support a community that looks out for its own. We love our farmers. So by making coffee at home, you save money. You will also drink good coffee every time you brew a cup. A visit to the café can be relaxing and enjoyable, but the cost can hurt your wallet. This year, why not save money and enjoy wonderful coffees grown by wonderful farmers? Once again Happy New Year! And Happy Brewing! The Hook Coffee Team