How much does a coffee really cost in Australia?

Caffeine fiends beware: The prices might be consistent but the quality isn't.

Despite predictions a latte will soon cost a fiver, the Gilkatho Cappuccino Index for March 2015 puts the average price of a cappuccino in Melbourne at $3.43 – second-cheapest in Australia (Sydney comes in at $3.34). Even in Perth – long said to have the country's most expensive coffee – the index has yet to break $4: in the west you pay, on average, $3.94.

Coffee under $5 is everywhere, all over the place, and ubiquitous. But what you get for that, in quality, varies enormously.

Most of Melbourne's specialty cafes charge between $3.50 and $4 for high-end espresso brews made using beans from traceable origins, hand-picked, carefully processed and lovingly roasted in small batches. Compare that with the industrial scale of coffee production behind some chainstore brews and the price similarity makes no sense. It's a little like paying $4 a glass for cask wine and $5 for the Clonakilla.

Hand-made filter coffee prices vary between $4 and $10 – in many cases still good value considering the ingredients, the transparency and the care taken in preparation.

At Omar and the Marvellous Coffee Bird in Gardenvale the filter brews are a flat $5 for 250ml, which is enough to share between two. At the moment it's worth trying the Panama Hartmann Estate, grown and processed in the Paso Ancho valley in Panama's Volcan region. It's sweet and creamy with floral aromas and a little bitter orange flavour. The pale, tea-like colour highlights the filter-style of roasting, and the flavours are not coffee as the espresso drinker knows it – this is something to savour rather than throw down.

Also good value are the pourover brews at Market Lane (Prahran, Vic Market and Carlton) for between $4.50 and $5 a cup. A Nicolas Colque from Bolivia has easy dark chocolate and fruit flavours, a silky mouthfeel and a great story – Nicolas Colque started out as a $1.20-a-day coffee picker before finally getting enough money together to buy his own farm.

One of Melbourne's best coffee showcases is Assembly Coffee in Carlton, where filter brews – hand-made while you watch and talk coffee with owners Chrissie Trabucco and Oliver Mackay – cost between $4 and $5.

The pair source coffee from specialty roasters in Sydney and Melbourne, assessing it in blind, open cuppings: reputation counts for nothing at Assembly. It's all about what's in the cup: and that's almost always very good.