托福听力短文 I-04-2
时间：2018-12-05 作者：英语课 分类：托福听力短文
(man) A lot of people in the United States are coffee drinkers. Over the last few years, a trend has been developing to introduce premium 1, specially 2 blended coffees --- knows as "gourmet 3 coffees" --- into the American market.
Boston seems to have been the birthplace of this trend. In fact, major gourmet coffee merchants from other cities like Seattle and San Francisco came to Boston, where today they're engaged in a kind of "coffee war" with Boston's merchants. They are all competing for a significant share of the gourmet coffee market.
Surprisingly, the competition among these leading gourmet coffee businesses will not hurt any of them. Experts predict that the gourmet coffee market in the United States is growing and will continue to grow, to the point that gourmet coffee will soon capture half of what is now a 1.5-million-dollar market and will be an 8-million-dollar market by 1999.
Studies have shown that coffee drinkers who convert to gourmet coffee seldom go back to the regular brands found in supermarkets. As a result, these brands will be the real losers in the gourmet coffee competition.
- You have to pay a premium for express delivery.寄快递你得付额外费用。
- Fresh water was at a premium after the reservoir was contaminated.在水库被污染之后，清水便因稀而贵了。