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speaks to Bwog on a spiritual level
We at Columbia gain a sense of community in part from our shared experience of two common problems:
- Staying awake while studying
- Surviving with money as broke college students in New York City
These objectives, when combined, can wreck any Columbia student’s wallet quickly if he/she doesn’t own a coffee machine. Energy drinks and coffee can add up, but don’t fret: Bwog is here for you.
We set out to investigate the following question: Where, excluding free offers, can one find the cheapest caffeine available in Morningside Heights?
We went to some of the better known caffeine sources around campus and the neighborhood to find out where caffeine is cheapest. We only checked for the largest sizes because we’re looking for the best deal possible. Here are our results:
| Location | Product | Quantity (mL or mg) | Caffeine (mg) | Price | Caffeine Concentration (mg/mL or mg/mg) | Price/mg of caffeine |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| West Side | Coffee | 591.5 | 240 | $1.75 | 0.406 | $0.007 |
| Alice’s (IAB) | Coffee | 473 | 192 | $1.75 | 0.406 | $0.009 |
| Uris Coffee Shop | Coffee | 591.5 | 240 | $2.30 | 0.406 | $0.010 |
| Starbucks | Coffee | 591.5 | 240 | $2.35 | 0.406 | $0.010 |
| UNI Cafe | Coffee | 591.5 | 240 | $2.50 | 0.406 | $0.010 |
| Oren’s | Coffee | 591.5 | 240 | $2.60 | 0.406 | $0.011 |
| Butler Cafe | Coffee | 591.5 | 240 | $2.70 | 0.406 | $0.011 |
| Nussbaum | Coffee | 591.5 | 240 | $2.75 | 0.406 | $0.011 |
| Morton | Illy Issimo | 201 | 155 | $2.59 | 0.771 | $0.017 |
| M2M | Monster | 591.5 | 140 | $2.49 | 0.237 | $0.018 |
| Joe | Coffee | 591.5 | 240 | $4.75 | 0.406 | $0.020 |
| Butler Cafe | Awake | 44 | 105 | $2.99 | 2.386 | $0.028 |
| Morton | Red Bull Can | 591.5 | 189 | $5.49 | 0.320 | $0.029 |
| West Side | Red Bull Can | 591.5 | 189 | $5.49 | 0.320 | $0.029 |
| Milano | Red Bull Can | 591.5 | 189 | $5.75 | 0.320 | $0.030 |
| Morton | Red Bull 4-pack | 993.7 | 240 | $7.99 | 0.242 | $0.033 |
| West Side | Red Bull 4-pack | 993.7 | 240 | $8.99 | 0.242 | $0.037 |
| Butler Cafe | Red Bull | 248.5 | 80 | $3.30 | 0.322 | $0.041 |
| Milano | Red Bull 4-pack | 993.7 | 240 | $11.99 | 0.242 | $0.050 |
Conclusions:
- Generally, go for coffee over energy drinks. It usually costs less than half what energy drinks cost per gram of caffeine, and is probably better for you anyways since they lack the sugar/taurine/crystal meth that’s typically in energy drinks.
- The most expensive gram of caffeine on campus is a can of Red Bull at Butler Café, which costs nearly 8 times as much per gram of caffeine as our cheapest source, the coffee at West Side.
- ButCaf’s Red Bull only loses to Milano’s, which for some reason sells its 4-packs of Red Bull at nearly twice the per-quantity price of a single can.
- Joe is crazy expensive, at nearly twice the price of most other coffee sources in the area.
- The only solid option we found, the Awake caffeinated chocolate sold at Butler Cafe, is about at the middle of our chart; it might be worth it if you want something tasty.
- The Morton vs. West Side battle is inconclusive—for now.
However, if you’re worried enough about how much money you’re spending on caffeine that you’re calculating its unit cost to the thousandth-dollars, it might be time for you to get a coffee machine.
Bwog always get a solid eight hours of sleep via Shutterstock
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18 Comments
@Camille's has coffee for ONE DOLLAR!! Check them out
@Food4Thought While this report specifically notes that it is only measuring caffeine content, there is some complications with regard to how much this may actually affect your alertness. While your average cup of black coffee may have alot more caffeine than your average energy drink per serving, coffee also weighs in at a surprisingly low amount of calories from carbohydrates (usually less than 10). The way that we get energized by caffeine is through a coupling of its stimulant effects and an energy source in the form of carbohydrates– this is in direct opposition to energy drinks, which most of the time are composed of caffeine (and other stimulants) AND a fair amount of the sugars that your body will actually end up using. So unless you are taking your coffee with a bunch of sugar or with a carbohydrate-based snack, you’ll find that it just wont work as well as an energy drink. This is obviously ignoring the fact that energy drinks are practically poison.
TL;DR: Red Bull gives you wings, but be careful what you wish for.
@Can of coffee.. $5
@Anonymous …did you want to say “stay woke not broke?”
@kr Better yet…
Buy a box of instant coffee at a store and keep some packets with you, then just ask for hot water. Free if you bring your own cup, .50-.75 (depending on location) for a disposable one.
@This entire report is flawed Contrary to the assumptions made in this report, caffeine content varies heavily from one coffee to the other. According to CaffeineInformer, the caffeine content of a standard starbucks coffee is around 21mg/fl oz, while dunkin donuts’ coffee is around 13 mg/fl oz, roughly half the caffeine content per volume. I’m sure that a cup of westside coffee is considerably less potent than starbucks, a company that is notorious for their hyper-caffeinated coffee. For this reason, I stick with starbucks.
Pro-tip: lighter roasts have more caffeine than darker roasts. A small cup of starbucks blonde roast will get me much more wired than a large cup of the crap they serve at nussbaum for much less money and diarrhea.
@also If you are really going for bang for your buck, you can order 1kg of pure caffeine powder off of amazon for $30 shipped. At 100mg/cup of coffee, that’s the equivalent of 10,000 cups of coffee, coming out to .3 cents per cup.
Use this information wisely and responsibly.
@Anonamoose You guys want to dissolve caffeine powder into Jagerbombs for Bacchanal?
@Anonymous Joe’s coffee does not cost $4.75… That’s some fancy drink like a latte or something.
@CC '15 Brownie’s coffee???
@n00bs just use caffeine pills man
@BC '14 Excuse me bwog what about Diet Coke?
@Wait... …where’s Liz’s Place?
@Anonymous No one tell Bwog that you can make your own coffee.
@!!! coffee makes me sleepy too. why?!? i have never been able to figure it out. other forms of caffeine don’t.
@Anonymous maybe bc it’s a warm drink? tea always makes me sleepy even if it’s caffeinated.
@Intelligentsia? Like, the beans?
@Artur Whoops, for some reason that had been marked as the location. Fixed to the uris coffee shop!