How much can 7,700 yen (US$58) buy you at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery? 

Lucky bag season is upon us, and if you’ve shopped lucky bags before, you know they aren’t all easy to get. Highly popular brands have to regulate their shoppers to avoid stampedes and major crowds, which is why Starbucks Japan’s lucky bag was by lottery only.

Unfortunately, our Japanese-language reporter Yuichiro Wasai was not chosen to receive the privilege. But it wasn’t all bad. He’d already set aside 7,800 yen (US$58) for the bag, so now he had free money to spend on whatever he liked! So he decided to go to the fancy Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Tokyo to spend 7,800 yen to make his own lucky bag, which would be even better than the original.

The Starbucks Reserve Roastery Tokyo not only has a huge menu of food and drinks, they are also well-known for having a very well-stocked shop of Starbucks merchandise. The place has a very ritzy feel, so Yuichiro assumed it would be easy to get his hands on some really nice, rare items.

But since the Reserve Roastery is also a cafe, Yuichiro really couldn’t spend all of his money on merchandise. The cafe itself is special, so he might as well have a cup of coffee while he was there. And since he was there to treat himself, he decided to splurge on a special, limited-time-only coffee…

Which cost him an astonishing 1,700 yen. What he ordered was the Citrus Coffeemoni, a bittersweet iced coffee drink designed after the cocktail known as a Spumoni, but without alcohol.

It tasted a bit more like a sparkling drink than a coffee, but drinking such a fancy coffee at a really nice Starbucks served to get Yuichiro revved up for shopping, so it was perfectly fine.

Since he had spent 1,700 on the drink, that meant he had only 6,100 yen left to spend on goods. What would he buy with what he had left?

The first thing that caught his eye was this bag. One of the most popular, and, of course, important, parts of the Starbucks lucky bag is the bag it comes in. If Yuichiro was to make himself his own lucky bag, a bag was indispensable. With that in mind, he glanced at the price tag…

And his eyes nearly bugged out of his head! This bag alone would use up his entire budget. There’s no point in remaking a lucky bag if you have only a bag and nothing to put in it, so Yuichiro had to make a compromise. He decided to go for a smaller bag, then he searched for something he could buy with the money left over. That, though, was about when reality really hit him over the head with a heavy stick (or possibly a heavy-duty Starbucks tumbler).

Tumblers were 4,400 yen…

The mugs were 2,530 yen…

And even this small coffee canister was 3,850 yen.

In the end, all he could fit into his budget was this copper bean scooper.

And so his total came out to…

6,050 yen.

In summary, all that Yuichiro could buy at a luxury Starbucks with 7,800 yen was

● A Citrus Coffeemoni (1,700 yen)
● A Starbucks Reserve Hacienda Canvas Tote (4,400 yen)
● A Starbucks Reserve Copper Clip Scoop (1,650 yen)

For a total of 7,750 yen!!

You might be surprised how few items 7,800 yen could get you at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery, but this is the reality of shopping at a luxury Starbucks. That might have you thinking that instead of relieving Yuichiro’s disappointment at not being selected to buy the Starbucks lucky bag, it really only made it worse, but that’s not the case.

If you compare it to last year’s Starbucks lucky bag, which cost 7,500 yen, Yuichiro obviously received far fewer products for the same price. But lucky bags aren’t always about quantity; quality is important, too!

After all, these aren’t just any Starbucks goods; they’re luxury Starbucks goods. Some might think the copper bean measuring spoon is pretty special. In that case, Yuichiro’s “self-chosen lucky bag” has even more to love than the regular bag…Wouldn’t you say? (Please say yes for Yuichiro’s sake.)

Well, at least one of our reporters won the chance to purchase the real Starbucks lucky bag, so keep an eye out for its unveiling when the New Year arrives. In the meantime, you can celebrate the holidays at Starbucks with their Christmas Gingerbread Cookie Customization special and their limited-edition Christmas sweets and drinkware!

Cafe information
Starbucks Reserve Roastery Tokyo / スターバックス リザーブロースタリー 東京
Address: Tokyo-to Meguro-ku Aobadai 2-19-23
東京都目黒区青葉台2-19-23
Open 7 a.m.-10 p.m.
Website

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