The audiophile analogy is not a terrible one, particularly given there's "sensible" snake-oil-avoiding audiophiles out there, but there's still a few important differences that make coffee quite different:
1. The expensive accessories thing is actually a bit of a myth.
Espresso is expensive: a good home machine will set you back well over 500 $/€ and can go up into the thousands, and an accompanying grinder is about the same price range again. You can pay over 100 just for a tamper.
But, coffee snobs are typically not into espresso. The two biggest areas of "audiophile-esque" dedication are pourover (v60 funnel ~€4.50) and the infamous International Aeropress Championships (retailing ~€35). Filter-grade grinders are also much cheaper than Espresso, going in the ~€200-€500 range for electric, but most dedicated aficionados prefer manual grinders which retail as low as €25 for a decent quality one.
A part of the above differences is that coffee snobs are into the more direct & involved (slow) process of making
The bigger cost to coffee snobs is beans, retailing usually around triple to quadruple the price of major brands. I guess this could be likened to buying vinyl... ? Though the audiophile community still disagree on whether vinyl is worthwhile.
2. It's not all about taste
Major brand coffee is sold at well below reasonable cost of production. Coffee snobs are buying Direct Trade coffee, which is typically much more sustainable and equitable, even when compared to many of the mass-produced "Fairtrade-labelled" brands. While buying expensive beans will hit your pocket much more severely than the equipment costs, it is at least going toward something.
This could I guess be likened to audiophiles supporting artists by buying albums etc. but I'm not sure if that's generally true of audiophiles specifically (e.g. compared to serial concert-goers)
I would say though that there are a few more considerations to keep in mind relative to the "audiophile" analogy.
- pourovers take a ton of time and effort, but an Aeropress is really fast. I think I spend maybe about a net time investment of 45 seconds (15 seconds to start the kettle/hit the grind button, 15 seconds to set it up, 15 seconds to make the coffee) between which phases I can do other stuff, like work, or, more likely, hacker news. Of course, this is WAY less time than going to a starbucks.
- even the more expensive beans are still on the order of 5x cheaper than the cheapest starbucks.
1. The expensive accessories thing is actually a bit of a myth.
Espresso is expensive: a good home machine will set you back well over 500 $/€ and can go up into the thousands, and an accompanying grinder is about the same price range again. You can pay over 100 just for a tamper.
But, coffee snobs are typically not into espresso. The two biggest areas of "audiophile-esque" dedication are pourover (v60 funnel ~€4.50) and the infamous International Aeropress Championships (retailing ~€35). Filter-grade grinders are also much cheaper than Espresso, going in the ~€200-€500 range for electric, but most dedicated aficionados prefer manual grinders which retail as low as €25 for a decent quality one.
A part of the above differences is that coffee snobs are into the more direct & involved (slow) process of making
The bigger cost to coffee snobs is beans, retailing usually around triple to quadruple the price of major brands. I guess this could be likened to buying vinyl... ? Though the audiophile community still disagree on whether vinyl is worthwhile.
2. It's not all about taste
Major brand coffee is sold at well below reasonable cost of production. Coffee snobs are buying Direct Trade coffee, which is typically much more sustainable and equitable, even when compared to many of the mass-produced "Fairtrade-labelled" brands. While buying expensive beans will hit your pocket much more severely than the equipment costs, it is at least going toward something.
This could I guess be likened to audiophiles supporting artists by buying albums etc. but I'm not sure if that's generally true of audiophiles specifically (e.g. compared to serial concert-goers)