A man has been left outraged over the price of a cup of coffee at a London cafe.
Sam Williams, 27, recently documented his visit to Kiss the Hippo, a coffee shop in Covent Garden, to try their Colombian ‘Wush Wush’ blend that retails for £16 a cup.
‘Is this one of the most expensive coffees in London?’ Williams, who is Dame Judi Dench‘s grandson, began his TikTok.
‘So, I recently heard a rumour that Kiss the Hippo, a chain of coffee shops, is doing a rare coffee called a “Wush Wush” from Colombia for £16 – and I needed to know why.’
In the clip, Williams can be seen ordering a cup of the ‘Wush Wush’, which has notes of strawberry, elderflower, and candied lemon, before a member of staff tells him the cup of joe takes between five and 10 minutes to brew.
TikToker Sam Williams documented his trip to try a £16 cup of coffee being served at a cafe in London’s Covent Garden
‘I absolutely love my coffee, so to try a rarer coffee was something I was eager to do, than just buying your regular bog standard coffee, which is burnt and nearly half the price.
‘So, I can massively appreciate when someone takes so much care over it,’ Williams said in a voiceover, playing over visuals of the interiors of the cafe.
His order was prepared using a V60 coffee dripper before it was poured into a cup for Williams to enjoy it on the go.
‘Let’s get into the review,’ Williams said. ‘I mean it smells amazing. [The barista] took so much care and effort over it.
‘The passion behind it. He was telling me about the first time he got [the coffee] in store and he spent the whole day trying to perfect it,’ he continued, suggesting that brewing the rare Colombian coffee was a labour of love.
Williams then added: ‘I mean for £16, you have to try and perfect it.’
He then delivered his verdict: ‘It’s good, it’s good. I’m not sure it’s ‘£16-good.’
Some of his followers suggested they’d ‘feel cheated’ if they were served such an expensive cup of coffee in a takeaway cup.
He ordered the Colombian ‘Wush Wush’ coffee at Kiss The Hippo, with the drink being prepared in a V60 dripper
Pictured: Kiss the Hippo cafe in Covent Garden, London
‘I just don’t think I could drink a £16 coffee in a cardboard cup. I’d feel cheated,’ one person wrote.
Another comment read: ‘Thanks for trying it and giving an honest review. Personally I’d expect a bit more than to drink it out of a paper cup for that much.
A third person added: ‘Drinking it out of a paper cup through a plastic lid will ruin any coffee.
Replying to a third person’s message, William admitted the coffee was probably better enjoyed in a ceramic mug while seated at Kiss the Hippo, as opposed to on-the-go.
Pictured: Williams holding his £16 cup of coffee
Others couldn’t justify its £16 price tag, with one person quipping: ‘I’ll try [the coffee] when I go to Colombia.’
Another said: ‘So effectively you’ve spent £16 on a V60 brewed with Colombian beans.’
A third user added: ‘£16 and they use a Timemore C2 [manual coffee grinder] to grind it?’
Still others informed Williams that, while £16 for coffee is steep, Kiss the Hippo’s brew is far from the city’s most expensive offering.
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One person wrote: ‘Try Shot, you won’t believe their most expensive coffee. £16 is peanuts by a few hundred pounds.’
They were likely referring to the £265 coffee that’s sold at Shot, a darkly lit coffee shop with outlets in Mayfair and Marylebone in London.
A strong contender for Britain’s most expensive coffee, the drink is made from coffee beans shipped in from Japan’s ‘island of eternal youth’.
The coffee’s exorbitant price is due to the use of typica beans, a higher quality version of the arabica beans, that are flown in to the UK from the Nakayama estate based on the Okinawa Island in Japan.
Williams’ followers couldn’t understand why the pricey coffee was served in a ‘cardboard cup’
Ordering a one kilogram bag of the special beans from the estate to the UK will set back baristas by £1,480 – with delivery cost not included – suggesting there is a mark-up on the cup served in London.
According to baristas working in the influencer-haven, the coffee is reportedly ordered ‘two to three times a week’ and is most often ordered by ‘true coffee lovers’.
At Shot, the beans are used to make drinks like espressos, flat whites, macchiatos, cappuccinos, and lattes, that would be available at any coffee shop on the high street.
That being said, the price of a latte at high-street favourites such as Starbucks has risen to over £5 in recent months.
At Starbucks, the price of a large latte is £5.20 when ordered for collection on Uber Eats in London, while Queens of Mayfair, in one of the British capital’s swankiest postcodes, charges an eye-watering £13 for its latte.
Danish juice and coffee brand Joe & the Juice, which has more than 50 branches in London alone, and outlets across the UK including Liverpool, Brighton, Birmingham and Oxford, currently charges £4.70 for a large (16oz) latte with regular milk.
Add in a syrup, say vanilla, and you’ll get charged an additional 50 pence, although unlike many other outlets, you won’t be charged extra for an additional milk. High-end fashion label Prada’s London coffee shop in Harrods department store, launched in 2023, charges £6.50 for a latte.
Caffe Nero’s is priced at £4.40 for a large latte, the same as Costa Coffee. Pret A Manger and Patisserie Valerie come in slightly cheaper at £4.05.
But this is before any additions are made – for instance, adding coconut and oat milk to your Caffe Nero beverage will set you back up to 50p.
Syrups such as caramel, vanilla and hazelnut at Costa Coffee, meanwhile, will cost up to 55p.
Williams is the grandson of Oscar-winning actress Dame Judi Dench, who has appeared in some of his TikToks.
The James Bond star previously said making goofy dance videos with Williams during the Covid-induced lockdowns ‘saved her life’ in an interview with Channel 4 News in 2020.
She added that Williams made her ‘rehearse’ before filming their socially distanced videos, explaining: ‘I know nothing about TikTok. Sam is the person who is technically minded and who has all the ideas, so he got very strict.
‘He made me do it. I had to rehearse, I had to rehearse all those moves. Don’t just think that comes naturally.’
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