Endurism Spotlight: The Reusable Coffee Cup

A regular coffee bought out in the Netherlands now costs about €3,50. In Amsterdam a cappuccino is €3,95.

One a day on workdays comes to roughly €805 a year. Over a decade that is more than €8.000. The money leaves in €3,50 pieces. You never feel it go.

Brewed at home, the same cup of coffee costs about €0,18 in beans. Filter coffee is less. The drink is nearly identical. The difference is the counter you bought it over.

The object

A KeepCup Thermal is a vacuum-insulated cup of 18/8 stainless steel. The M size holds 340ml and costs €30. There is no battery and no electronics inside it. The body keeps coffee hot on the commute and takes years of daily use without complaint.

The cup is built in parts. The lid, the band and the silicone gasket each come off. KeepCup sells every part on its own. When the gasket wears after a few years, you replace that part for a few euro. You do not replace the cup. This is why one cup lasts a decade instead of a season.

The math

The daily purchase is the expensive part. The cup is almost nothing. Here is a decade of one workday coffee, brewed at home, against the same coffee bought out.

The cup earns itself back in about nine working days. Everything after that is money you keep.

Ownership

A reusable cup holds no resale value, so this is pure cost avoidance. The gain is the purchase you stop making. Any clean cup captures most of it. The steel one wins because you never buy it twice. You carry the same object for ten years. You wash it each night and change a gasket once. The coffee comes with you. So does the €3,50.

Verdict: a €30 cup you refill at home turns an €8.000 habit into a €450 one.

Own better.