Good math and good point! People should really make more of this kind of comparison, between good tea and generic coffee, between fresh fruits and regular ice cream, between loose leaf tea and tea bags...tenuki wrote: As far as 'what is expensive' - Let's take one of my other 20+ year puerh as an example, it cost ~360 US dollars for ~400g purchased in china. Let's round that out to $1/g for convenience.
Since it likes about 4g/100ml that means the cost of a pot is 4 dollars. It goes for around 15 brewings per pot, so that is ~ 25 cents cup of tea. My wife pays 4 dollars for 12 oz of crappy starbucks coffee every day and doesn't think of it at all. People regularily pay 1.20 for _water_. Think about it...
The other day I also noticed in the grocery most tea bag product contains only 20 bags in a pack and each tea bag is only 1 gram. So many people are paying $3-5 per 20 grams for shredded tea leaves!