Yahoo Finance Money-saving tip for cheaper iced lattes: ‘No extra charge'
As temperatures soar, Aussies may want a cooler coffee. But there's a premium price to be paid.
A money-wise cafe owner has revealed how to get a cheaper iced latte as Australians opting for the chilled beverage in the summer heat are slugged with prices as high as $9.
Hospitality folk have been justifying the premium placed on ordering an iced latte following consumer backlash, and it does make sense. You need to get ice, they are often sold in different cups, with a straw, more milk and an extra shot of coffee to accommodate the larger size.
However, cafe owner and experienced barista Gabby Mifsud, who runs The Snappy Grump with her sister Felicity in Melbourne, told Yahoo Finance there were a few ways you could reduce the cost of your chilled caffeine hit. An iced latte generally comes with two shots of coffee instead of one, but if you don’t need the extra hit of energy, you can simply ask for it in a smaller cup with a single shot.
“It’s just a little bit of ice and a little bit of milk so I always opt to just charge what I usually do for a small regular coffee for $4.50,” Mifsud said. “So, say if someone wants a small iced almond latte, I'll put it through as an almond latte and just write ‘iced’ on the docket then away we go. No extra charge. No nothing.”
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This might sound simple, but I have personal experience requesting this order and being refused. Or still being charged $6.50 for the smaller size. This is where Mifsud said it paid to have a familiar barista.
“Cafes are like doctors, you don’t change them once you’ve found a good one,” she said. “And a good one will know what you have. It’s a customer-service environment so if you ask for a small iced latte, I’ll try to find a way to do it for you. But some cafes have people working there who are just there to get paid.”
Mifsud - who started the family business with a coffee cart and slowly built up to a store of their own - said the experience level of the person on the till could come into play.
“If you have a 15 or 20-year-old who isn't a barista, they might not have any idea what you’re talking about and they are just going to put it through as an iced latte.
“The best way to order is: ‘I just want a small iced latte with the one shot. Is that OK?’ And I'd specifically say, ‘I just want the one shot in the smaller amount of milk’.”
If you are keen for that extra milky double shot, the 27-year-old also shared a cheeky hack to reduce your costs by $2-$3.
“This is a major tip that even I do as a barista myself that is going to save you big bucks,” she said.
“Before you leave home, get some milk and some ice into a little keep cup and order a double espresso, which usually costs less than $4. Pour that into your milk and ice and you have your iced latte and that is literally it. There is nothing else to an iced latte so save some money.”
Mifsud knows the struggle with rising costs and has had to increase the price of her coffees this year after “milk, coffee beans and just about every overhead” went up.
“You put the price up just so you can survive, but just enough, you don’t want the consumer going, ‘Oh my god it’s $7 for a coffee’. That’s just stupid and that’s the day I will choose to close the cafe, when I have to start charging $7,“ she said.
Ensuring she has a quality product and happy staff does come at a premium but she said being able to pay her employees above award wage and produce a tasty brew was why people would return.
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