Is Speciality Coffee Worth The Price?

What’s the difference between specialty and commodity coffee?

These are two bingo words in the coffee world, so let’s break them down.

Commodity coffee is the low-grade stuff you find in instant coffees and most cheap chain café cups. It comes from speed-grown, machine-picked robusta coffee beans and usually tastes bitter and grainy. It’s not the coffee to knock your socks off!

Commodity coffee scores less than 80 points on the official coffee grading scale. Specialty coffee, meanwhile, scores 80 points or above.

There’s a coffee grading scale? Huh?

There sure is! Professional coffee tasters (called Q Graders) taste and award a coffee the specialty crown when the whole process is top-notch. When the beans are grown with love and care, and the flavours are utterly OUTSTANDING. Are you wearing socks? Take a sip of speciality coffee, and you won’t be for much longer…

What do Q Graders judge the coffee on?

Q Graders test (‘cup’) coffees on rather a large number of factors:

• Flavour
• Aftertaste
• Acidity
• Sweetness
• Balance
• And more…

We could go on, but it gets very techy. If you want to read more about this, though, we have just the article for you!

Click here!

So, now you know how coffee becomes specialty coffee, let’s dive into the sourcing side of things.

One of the other reasons specialty coffees may cost you a bit more is due to the way it is grown and sourced. Most specialty beans are ethically sourced via a short supply chain. This ensures that a larger percentage of the profits go directly back to the amazing farmers themselves.

Here at Two Chimps, it’s our standard principle to pay between 30 and 150% more than the going rate. This means we know our farmers are receiving an even higher return than with commodity or non-ethically sourced beans.

After all, it’s all down to their careful hand-picking that guarantees we get perfectly ripe, naturally sweet coffee beans. No bitterness here!

Small-batch roasting

Make the switch to speciality coffee, and you’ll almost certainly get freshly roasted coffee. Choose Two Chimps, and you definitely will!

We only roast by hand, in small batches multiple times a week. This means when your brew lands on your doormat, it would have been roasted 2-3 days ago (talk about fresh!) We also freshly grind per order, none of this pre-ground in advance nonsense.

We do this because we want you to get the best flavours from your coffee. Stale beans don’t sound nice, and trust us, they don’t taste nice either!

What affects the price of coffee?

Specialty coffee cost depends on many factors…

• The weather that year
• Cost of shipping
• Are you buying decaf?
• Country of origin
• etc.

All arabica coffee prices increased in 2021 and again in 2025, following a period of decline, after Brazil, the world’s largest producer of coffee, suffered its worst frost in over two decades. Global shipping prices have also been causing problems.

This doesn’t just affect the cost of arabica coffee – robusta beans also went up in price. Some instant coffees shot up by as much as a third last year, did you know?

So, let’s get down to the numbers. How much does speciality coffee cost?

Hmm… how long is a piece of string? Just like almost everything money-related, stating one clear cost is impossible.

Let’s do some investigating…

According to the Specialty Coffee Retail Price Index, the average price for specialty coffees in September 2021 was $28.64 per pound, but by September 2024, this had risen to around $30.24 per pound. The Index focuses on US roasters, however, and takes prices from the lowest and highest roasteries in the country.

Here in the UK, a 250g bag of speciality usually costs between £9 and £13, probably a little more for exclusives and micro-lots. At Two Chimps, you can buy a full-sized bag of freshly roasted loveliness starting at £10.45 (which drops to £9.45 with our subscription service), and you always receive FREE First Class delivery on orders over £25. Because free things are nice, yes?

How long will that bag last?

Well, this depends on what you brew with and how many coffees you make a day!

If you make one filter coffee a day, you’ll get through about 140g of coffee each week. So you could try a weekly 250g bag? Gives you some extra for when friends pop round.

Whereas, a double espresso uses around 17g per coffee, so for one a day, that will last you two weeks.

When it comes to pricing, we can’t be the only ones noticing the soaring costs of takeaway food and drinks. Nowadays, if you’re in the mood for a cappuccino from a coffee chain, you can expect to pay around £4 for just one cup. We think this is pretty eye-watering.

Is fresh coffee worth the price?

We’re not going to sit here and say you Must Buy specialty. Everyone’s budget is different, and what you spend your pennies on is up to you (but proper coffee is always a good shout!).

Whether you’re treating yourself to a bag or fancy setting up a subscription, it’s worth spending that little bit extra to get the best.

Fairly traded, ethically sourced speciality coffee gives back to the farmers and takes care of the planet. It’s picked, roasted and packed by hand, and shown a whole lotta love along the way. And the flavour? It’s something else! Fresh, vibrant, full-bodied…