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”.

Gnads wrote on Jan 7^th, 2026 at 9:53am:


But you are not paying for a cup of tea are you, you are paying someone to serve you and make the tea for you, how much would you expect a business to charge you for supplying a table and all the equipment to make the tea, the premises for you to drink the tea in heated or air-conditioning, a waiter to serve you and to clean up after you and clean the dishes. Oh and he had to provide the waiter with a livable wage, so how much do you think would be a fair price?.

Abundance everywhere and numpties deciding to live in scarcity 

thegreatdivide wrote on Jan 7^th, 2026 at 5:14pm:



Socialism is the answer.  It's the answer to EVERY question for you, parrot.

Creepy, slanderous gweggy skunk pig has wank fantasies on the mind, you have Chinese socialism.

Same same.

Bobby. wrote on Jan 7^th, 2026 at 10:20am:


And Pattison's being a franchise, a bit of money gets kicked up to the franchisor.
It would take about 10 mins total to prepare, serve, clear and clean up a pot of tea.
A worker on $25/hr they're covering costs. If it's a public holiday they're losing money.

A few days ago it was tim tams. Seems like it is a new on every week. Why does news.com.au keep churning out these petty "outrage over the price of something trivial in downtown Sydney" articles?

And why do you keep reposting them WK? Just because it fits in with some communist narrative? Do you think the price of a pot of tea in a cafe is actually important? Do you actually feel angry about it?

Leroy wrote on Jan 7^th, 2026 at 10:17am:

That also applies to a cup of coffee, so there is no justification for the high cost of the low price tea.

By the way, anyone travelling through Armidale, NSW, is advised to visit the Railway Hotel, not only do they serve good food but hot meals are served on heated plates, which factor alone distinguishes them from most eateries in Australia.

tallowood wrote on Jan 8^th, 2026 at 10:40am:


All part of free enterprise market economies, in which rich people with more money than brains can pay a fortune for everyday consumer items to show how rich they are.

Sir Eoin O Fada wrote on Jan 10^th, 2026 at 10:01am:

You will be pleasantly surprised by the excellent fish and chips to be obtained from Invergowrie Store, Armidale. Always of high quality, the chips are cooked to perfection in fresh oil at the hands of Barney, your genial host at Invergowrie in the scenic New England. Buy at Invergowrie Store, your one stop for fine food and fuel.

FD,
Quote:



He just copied and pasted an interesting article from news.com.
Maybe sir Crook thought that since news.com considered it interesting
for their millions of readers, that Ozpol readers would also be interested?

I know sir Crook  - he's a bloke with his heart in the right place.   

freediver wrote on Jan 10^th, 2026 at 11:28am:


It all depends on frequency. I can afford to take the family out to an expensive restaurant, but if I did it every meal my finances would take a hit.

Even a homeless person can afford the occasional bit of luxury like sitting down and getting a pot of tea. For reference, I rarely buy a coffee from a cafe,  I have a cute little 200ml stainless flask that is perfect for 2 shots that I make at home and take as a traveler.

Bobby. wrote on Jan 10^th, 2026 at 12:26pm:


But where is his head Bobby? He seems to be on autopilot most of the time. The only thing interesting about the article, and the hundreds of other almost-identical ones he posts, is how stupid and pointless they are, despite making it onto our largest news service.

freediver wrote on Jan 11^th, 2026 at 2:47pm:


Indeed; somewhat contradicting your earlier statement:

Quote:


A contradiction resulting from your dysfunctional Neoclassical freemarket ideology.

See the remedy in the the latest post in the MMT thread: basically government deficits enabling government to manage cost of living pressures for low income groups. 

https://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1645944963/1380#1392

YouTube popped a video into my feed of Niall Ferguson (the author of The Ascent of Money: a financial history of the world) being interviewed on the TRIGGERnometry show. He was asked the inevitable question about governments “living beyond their means”, and gave the standard answer that governments which spent more than they collected in taxation are on the road to ruin.

(snip)

In fact, deficits are a feature of the system. Firstly, the government has to spend more than it takes back in taxation in order to create “fiat money”: money backed by the government’s authority, rather than by debt, as is the case for (private sector) credit money. Secondly, if the government spends more than it takes back in taxation, it increases the financial equity of the non-government sectors. The banks are already in positive financial equity, as they have to be. But the non-bank private sector starts in negative financial equity—as shown by the initial conditions—and the only way it can get into positive financial equity is if government spending exceeds taxation. This necessarily involves the government going into negative financial equity.

Come on fd, time to educate yourself.





     

freediver wrote on Jan 11^th, 2026 at 4:56pm:


Ah - you disappoint me fd, I expected better from you.

You even out-did Frank, in failing to address the post to which you imagined you were replying.

Deplorable. 

TGD,
are you now or have you ever been
a member of the communist party?