It’s a big price to pay for a cup of coffee, but the man behind the field promises not to leave a bitter taste because of the sweetener from part of the dairy farm.
Scottish Milk offers what it claims is Britain’s most expensive cup o’ joe: $344 for a flat white — a double shot of espresso topped with a layer of steamed milk and a work of foam art.
The prized cup is actually a benefit for buying shares in Mossgiel Organic Dairy’s crowdfunding campaign to expand their sustainable operations and produce more milk.
Investors who buy 34 shares in the farm get flat white certificates that can be redeemed from this weekend at one of the 13 coffee shops in Scotland that use the dairy’s milk.
“This coffee costs almost 80 times the price of the average flat white in the UK – but it’s more than just a great drink,” said owner Bryce Cunningham. “We know it sounds crazy, but when you break it down, it’s really good. How much is the future of farming worth?”
The price above the eye-watering $335 that Shot London, a coffee bar in the posh Mayfair and Marylebone neighborhood, charges for a flat white made with rare beans from Okinawa, Japan.
The Telegraph reported in April that it was the most expensive coffee in the UK.
Before launching the coffee promotion, Cunningham has raised more than a third of the $379,355 he sought from small investors as he tries to get a $1,138,066 loan that will help him double his operation and expand to Scotland and even a coffee shop in London. .
Shareholders also receive other prizes, farm tours, milk delivery discounts and invitations to special events. But investors are also given the standard warning that they may lose some or all of their invested money – except for coffee.
A tenant farm in Mauchline, about 25 miles south of Glasgow, was occupied in the 18th century by the poet Robert Burns, who wrote “Auld Lang Syne” and many other well-known works.
Burns, who is considered Scotland’s national poet, wrote while working in the fields there for two years and his face gave every bottle of Mossgiel milk.
Cunningham, a former service manager for Mercedes-Benz, took over the operation in 2014 after his father and grandfather died in 2014 of terminal illnesses.
The fall in milk prices that year and other problems forced him to sell most of his livestock and re-establish his business as an organic farm.
They use a process to “steam” the milk, rather than pasteurize it, which they say gives the creaminess and texture of raw milk without the health risks.
Todd Whiteford, one of the owners of The Good Coffee Cartel in Glasgow who serves up the pricey cup, says he has been using Mossgiel milk for years.
Despite the “outrageous offer” from competitors to switch, said other milk producers can not match the quality and consistency that makes cappuccinos “rounder, smooth and sweet”, latte and flat white – and more coffee art.
“He’s the best. I’ll argue with anybody about that,” Whiteford said.
Anyone who buys Mossgiel coffee, however, will get the same cup as any other Coffee Kartel customer can buy for $3.98. But Cunningham says there will be a sense of goodness with every posh cup.
“They will have their own transcendence if the coffee is better than just buying it,” Cunningham said.
