It's a hefty price to pay for a cup of coffee, but the man behind the pitch promises it won't leave a bitter taste thanks to a dairy farm's worth of sweetener.
A Scottish dairy company is offering what it claims is Britain's most expensive cup o' joe. The flat white costs $344. It's a double shot of espresso topped with a layer of steamed milk and a moment of foam art.
This expensive cup is actually a perk for buying stock in Mossgiel Organic Dairy's crowdfunding campaign to expand its sustainable operations and produce more milk.
Investors who buy 34 shares in the farm will receive a flat white certificate that can be redeemed from this weekend at one of Scotland's 13 coffee shops that use the milk.
“Our coffee costs nearly 80 times more than the average UK flat white, but it's more than just a great drink,” says owner Bryce Cunningham. “It may sound silly, but when you analyze it, it's a pretty good deal. How much is the future of agriculture worth?”
That price beats the eye-popping $335 that Shot London, a coffee bar in the upscale Mayfair and Marylebone districts, charges for a flat white made with rare beans from Okinawa.
The Telegraph reported in April that it was Britain's most expensive coffee.
Before he started promoting his coffee, Cunningham was already seeking $379,355 from small investors, seeking a $1,138,066 loan to help double his business and expand from Scotland to coffee shops in London. They had collected more than a third of the total. .
Shareholders also receive other perks, such as farm tours, milk delivery discounts, and invitations to special events. However, investors are also given the standard warning that, with the exception of coffee, they may lose some or all of their invested funds.
Mauchlin's Tennant Farm, about 40 miles south of Glasgow, was worked in the 18th century by poet Robert Burns, who wrote “Auld Lang Syne'' and many other famous works.
Burns, considered Scotland's national poet, wrote while working in the fields of Scotland for two years, and his face is painted on each glass bottle of Mosgiel Milk.
Cunningham, a former service manager at Mercedes-Benz, took over the business in 2014 after his father and grandfather passed away from an incurable illness in 2014.
The collapse in milk prices that year and other problems forced him to sell most of his cows and restructure the business as an organic farm.
He uses a process of “brewing” the milk instead of pasteurizing it, which he said gives him the creamy taste and texture of raw milk without the health risks.
Todd Whiteford, one of the owners of Good Coffee Cartel in Glasgow, which supplies the expensive cups, said he had been using Mosgiel milk for several years.
Despite “exorbitant offers” from competitors to switch, the quality and consistency yields “mellower, smoother, sweeter” cappuccinos, lattes, flat whites and better coffee art. No other milk producer can match it, he said.
“Their stuff is the best. I'll argue with anyone about that,” Whiteford said.
However, those who splurge on Mosgiel's coffee will be getting the same cup that other coffee cartel customers can buy for $3.98. But Cunningham says there's a taste of virtue in any fancy cup.
“They'll probably have a sense of self-transcendence that coffee is doing them more good than not buying coffee,” Cunningham said.
