Coffee is a highly valuable product that, for much of it's commercial existence, has been extremely undervalued. It's still common for people to expect coffee to be cheap — this perspective results in a high volume, low quality market... of course, this is speaking broadly.

The coffee industry as a whole has made immense progress in recent decades to elevate the quality and value of coffee, but there's still a ways to go.

An interesting value comparison to make is with wine — for example, let's take bottle of wine (750ml) that costs $15, and a bottle of wine that costs $1500 (something that's not uncommon in the wine industry).

If we compare to the average serving of filter coffee (250ml) the cost per serving of the $15 bottle of wine would be around $5/250ml, while the $1500 bottle of wine, around $500/250ml.

Yet, in coffee right now we're just beginning to see $5/250ml being served in coffee shops for very high-value coffees that have the same sensory potential as very high-quality wines.

This isn't to say everyone should pay $500 for a 250ml serving of coffee. But we are saying that the value potential is there — and above all — this value should be seen in all stages of the supply chain.