LOWER MANHATTAN — A new report has found that a $19 coffee tastes the same as a $5 coffee, with the additional benefit of a brief, clarifying encounter with one’s own choices.

Researchers at a downtown counter ordered both drinks under controlled conditions, which is to say they were thirsty and someone had already started a tab. In a blind test, eleven of twelve participants could not tell the cups apart. The twelfth said the expensive one “felt more watched.”

The shop describes the price as part of the experience. The experience, according to a printed card, includes a ceramic vessel, a single-origin lecture, and eye contact of a length usually reserved for people about to break up. The $5 coffee down the block comes in a paper cup and does not ask how your morning is going in a way that requires an answer.

I think I tasted the rent.”— A subject in the study, still holding the cup

“It’s really about the experience,” said the report’s lead author, who then expensed the experience and stared at the receipt for a while. The receipt itemized the drink, a suggested tip that had already made peace with the premise, and a blank line where a person might write what they had learned.

The Gazette has filed the cup under Dining and the feeling under Metro. Further research was proposed and then abandoned when the intern pointed out that the newsroom coffee is free and also, technically, an experience. ◆