Outrage over ‘insane’ price of pot of tea at Sydney cafe
Tea drinkers face a new low as one Sydney cafe charges a steep price for a single cup, exposing the industry’s most “infuriating” pricing practice.
News.com.au
January 7, 2026
How much would you pay for a cuppa at a cafe?
$4.50? $5? $5.50?
What about $6.50?
That’s the price one Sydneysider forked out for a teapot that seemed to contain only a single cup’s worth of tea.
“Shrinkflation in this city is getting ridiculous,” the Aussie man lamented on Reddit.
“While waiting for the missus, I encountered the worst case of shrinkflation yet.”
He then shared photos of a black teapot at Pattison’s Patisserie pouring what looked like just one serving into a cup and saucer.
Pattison’s is a popular French-inspired chain known for pastries and coffee, with more than 20 NSW locations including Balgowlah, Burwood and Chatswood in Sydney.
The price of tea at a NSW coffee chain has sparked debate.
The post racked up dozens of likes and comments, sparking outrage over Sydney’s rising cafe prices, with one commenter calling it a “scam”.
“Tea drinkers get super ripped off in Australia,” said another.
Others admitted they were sick of paying “almost the same amount as a coffee” for a “20 cent tea bag and hot water”.
Another tea drinker declared cafe-bought tea should be at least half the price of coffee, given the effort that goes into making it compared with its more highly caffeinated counterpart.
Someone else claimed cafes get away with charging more for tea pots as “Australia doesn’t have much of a tea culture, so loose leaf is considered ‘fancy’, so they can charge through the roof”.
A man complained about paying $6.50 for this pot of tea.
However, others pointed out that you get more than just the tea when dining out.
“You’re paying for the table, not the tea,” noted one.
“It’s for the ambience,” another replied. “And the rent, labour and utilities”.
“You can drink tea two ways – at home or expensively,” a third wrote, as another added: “Ordering tea outside the home is really asking for it”.
Meanwhile, others suggested asking for refills of hot water to “get better value”.
News.com.au has reached out to Pattison’s for comment.
Plenty of commenters also thought the price was too steep,
While this is just one anecdote, official data confirms cafe and restaurant prices have indeed gone up in the last year.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics Consumer Price Index, hospitality prices have increased by 3.3 per cent, marking the sharpest rise since the pandemic began.
For consumers, this translates into real wallet hits. For example, the average price of a coffee increased from $4.31 to $4.64 between June 2024 and June 2025 – a nearly eight per cent jump within a single year. Some city cafes are even charging between $6 and $7 a cup.
Economic pressures are mostly to blame, says Restaurant & Catering Australia president John Hart.
“The increases in restaurant pricing are simply a reflection of input costs,” Mr Hart told news.com.au.
“80 per cent of restaurant inputs are food and wages, which have both increased this year.”
As of July 2025, the national minimum wage rose by 3.5 per cent to $24.95 per hour.
Add penalty rates for weekends and public holidays, which push costs even higher, and businesses often have little choice but to further raise menu prices to stay afloat.
Overheads like rent and utilities have also risen, with reports across the industry showing these costs remain some of the biggest challenges for businesses trying to survive on tight margins.
Still, some industry experts argue cafes are overcharging for tea, even after factoring in rising business expenses.
When it comes to tea, standard tea bags are often worth no more than 5 to 10 cents.
Plus, many cafes will simply leave the tea bag on the side of the plate and not even brew it for the customer, meaning labour time, and therefore costs, are low.
The outcry has trickled over to ABC radio, where one user called the practice “the worst hospitality crime”.
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