Starbucks has just broken the sound barrier. With its latest paper cup of premium coffee selling for $7, I can hear my long-deceased father screaming from the grave, “Seven dollars for a cup of coffee? My first car didn’t cost seven dollars! My first house didn’t cost seven dollars! Your grandfather had to work on the back of a horse for a week to make seven dollars!”

No doubt you’ve heard similar harangues from your parents or grandparents. “What on earth could make a cup of coffee worth seven dollars?” they ask. “Do they put gold in it, or is it like a lottery? Do you win something?” Telling them that the coffee’s made from Costa Rican Finca Palmilera beans doesn’t seem to mean anything to them.