Most coffee drinkers in the US have a sense of how pricey Starbucks seems. At an average of $2.75 at US Starbucks outlets, a small (or "tall" in Starbucks-speak) hot latte is pricier than a regular cup of coffee, even ordered from a cafe or restaurant. But it's less costly than a meal or an alcoholic drink when ordered out.
But how indulgent is Starbucks beyond US borders? To assess that, ValuePenguin, a consumer research company, took prices for the drink in 39 other countries and adjusted them to reflect the cost of other goods and services there compared with the US.
The results reveal Starbucks is pricier, relatively speaking, in every country outside the US, said Paul Reynolds, an editor at ValuePenguin.
But how much pricier varies a lot, he said.
In some countries, a latte hits the wallet only a little harder than in the US. These froth-friendly nations include Australia, Britain, New Zealand and Canada.
But stepping up to the Starbucks counter in the most costly countries feels like a far bigger extravagance. Nothing matches the luxe indulgence of ordering a latte in Russia, where the tab would feel like spending $12 for the drink here at home. In the other pricier countries for Starbucks, including India and Indonesia, the sticker shock would be more akin to spending $7 or so at home, according to the research. The latte would cost the equivalent of $8.04 in Thailand.
These seeming splurges underline how inexpensive many other goods and services are in those countries. With bread, milk, or other staples less costly there than in the US, Starbucks seems like a big spend indeed. The figures may also explain why in many countries Starbucks is an exotic, status-laden chain -- an embodiment, perhaps, of American affluence and indulgence, said Mr Reynolds.
For the research, ValuePenguin analysed the most recent market data (from January 2016) on the cost of a small hot latte at Starbucks in 44 countries as gathered by Euromonitor International. In countries for which there were multiple price quotes, it averaged the quotes to arrive at a national average.
While the gathered data was in the local currency of each nation, ValuePenguin did not simply convert the currency into US dollars, because such a conversion would not reflect the differing purchasing power of a certain amount of money in each country.
Instead, it used a converter developed by a consultant, Nigel Babu, which uses data from the World Bank that reflects the respective cost of a basket of goods, including food, in countries around the world. The dollar figure it shows represents the cost of that latte in context with other goods, said Mr Reynolds.