The New Starbucks Sells $50 Coffee

Starbucks
Dan Gentile/Thrillist
Dan Gentile/Thrillist

It might seem as though you spend $50 for coffee at Starbucks, but at the new-ish upscale Starbucks it's actually not so hard. Back in 2014, Starbucks opened its first coffee-nerd paradise, in its hometown of Seattle, where it sells Reserve coffee for up to $50 per 8oz. Yup, a bag of coffee for one ol' Ulysses S. Grant.

Now, everyone's favorite coffee overlord has plans to open these specialized cafés -- the Starbucks Reserve Roastery -- around the globe. This week, Starbucks announced that the Roastery is opening a 13,000sqft location in Tokyo in 2018, along with previously announced locations in NYC and Shanghai. And you thought your venti skim half-caff Pumpkin Spice Latte with extra caramel was fancy. Check out what these mega-sized locations have on offer.

Starbucks Roastery Reserve
Dan Gentile/Thrillist

Roasting happens here

These shops do in-house roasting in batches as small as 25-50kg at a time. Compare that to the 500lb batches of the big Starbucks production plants.

Starbucks Roastery Reserve
Dan Gentile/Thrillist

Your cup of coffee gets made all fancy-like

Roastery locations include Chemex, pour-over equipment, and other unique ways of preparing your morning cup o' joe.

Starbucks Roastery Reserve
Dan Gentile/Thrillist

Coffee flights are the new beer flights

Have a little time to kill? Or just want a huge caffeine boost? Sit down and enjoy single-origin bean coffee flights.

Starbucks Roastery Reserve
Dan Gentile/Thrillist

Enjoy the view

No matter where you sit, the view's pretty good. But let's be real -- you'll be staring at your phone the whole time anyways.

Perhaps the Roastery and its delicious $50 coffee will be coming to your city soon. In the meantime, we recommend enjoying a much more affordable PSL.

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Lee Breslouer is a senior writer for Thrillist, and would like to try a $50 cup of coffee. Follow him to a caffeine high @LeeBreslouer.