How to Read an Amsterdam Coffeeshop Menu

Ever looked at a coffeeshop menu and thought, “Okay—but what does this number actually buy me?” Start with four things: category, unit, price and date. Read them in that order and the menu gets a lot less mysterious.

Step 1: Sort the line into a category

Most menus group their lines under headings such as weed, hash, joints or pre-rolls, and extracts. Some add edibles or extras. The category decides what kind of number you are looking at. Weed, hash and extracts sell by weight, so their prices can be turned into a per-gram figure. Joints, pre-rolls and everything sold per piece keep unit prices that never convert.

This is the step people skip, and it’s where the worst comparisons are born. A €7.50 joint and a €13 gram look like a bargain until you notice they are measured in different units. On the price pages the categories are kept apart on purpose: weed against weed, hash against hash, joints against joints. That is also why a cheapest list never mixes a piece with a weight.

Step 2: Read the unit before the number

Within a category, the unit is printed on the line: 1g, 5g, or a piece. The unit changes what the number next to it means. A 5g pack whose total works out to €14 per gram is not a €14 gram: the division belongs to the pack format, not to the single-gram format. In the October window the median per-gram value of weed 5g-pack listings was €14 across 187 listings, against €13 for weed 1g listings, and the two never merge.

A per-gram value is only computed when the menu prints a weight. The site keeps single-gram prices and pack prices in separate blocks, and a pack total is never read as a single-gram price. The gram-versus-pack guide covers the arithmetic in more detail.

Step 3: Put the price into its distribution

A single number means little on its own. What gives it meaning is the distribution it sits in. For weed sold as 1g, menus observed on Amsterdam Coffeeshop Menus between 21 September and 21 October 2026 produced 139 listings across 27 shops. The median was €13 per gram, the middle half of listings ran from €10 to €16, and the observed range stretched from €5 to €35.

Against that spread, €13 is an unremarkable gram. €16 is the top of the middle half, not a scandal. €5 is the tail of the distribution, and one listing at €5 does not describe a market. That is why the price pages lead with the median and print the quartiles next to it: the median says where the middle sits, the quartiles say how wide the normal range is.

Step 4: Find the date

Every menu the site captures carries a date, and every price keeps the date of the menu it was read from. A price on a menu dated this week is a fresh statement. The same price on a menu dated eight months ago is history, labelled last known, and the difference to the current median is shown as indicative rather than as a discount.

So before you compare €13 here with €11 there, check both dates. In the October window, 28 of the 251 listed shops had a fresh menu; the rest of the dated archive is older. An older menu does not become wrong the day it ages. It becomes a claim about the past, and it is only honest when read that way.

What menus print next to the price

Prices rarely travel alone. The same line usually carries a strain name, sometimes an origin label such as Cali, and sometimes a printed THC or CBD percentage. Treat all of these the same way: they are what the shop printed, not facts this site has verified. A strain name is the shop’s own label for the product, and the same name can appear at two shops describing two different things.

Some lines also break the weight pattern. A bundle may sit under its own product name, and a line with no printed weight stays a unit price forever, because there is nothing to divide.

A worked comparison, line by line

Open a listing in the shop directory and identify its category, format, printed price and date. Then open the matching weed price table if it is a weed line, and read the relevant median and quartiles. You can establish where the printed line sits relative to that sample. You cannot establish quality, current stock or a guaranteed saving from the position alone.

Now the counter-example: a €10 gram on a menu dated last spring. Same category, same unit, but the date places it outside the 30-day window. The honest comparison is not €10 against €13. It is what the shop printed months ago against what the city’s fresh menus print now. Both numbers stay on the page. Neither pretends to be the other.

One more beat: €35, the highest observed 1g gram in the window. It is a real listing, and it is also the extreme of 139. Extremes exist in every distribution. The quartiles exist to tell you what the middle looks like.

Two habits that make any menu readable

First, convert everything to the same unit before you compare. Per gram for weight categories, per piece for joints. A shop’s menu becomes a short list of numbers you can line up against the city medians in minutes, and the format blocks on the price pages already do the grouping for you.

Second, read the date before you react to any number that looks unusual. A striking price is usually an old price. The date converts a surprise into context: either a fresh statement worth comparing against the median, or a historical one worth reading as history.

What a menu cannot tell you

A menu says what a shop printed, on a day. It does not say what is on the shelf when you walk in, what the product is like, or what the till will charge. The site transcribes menus and publishes nothing about quality, stock or availability, and nothing here is verified in person.

The only price that counts is the one at the counter. Read the menu to form an expectation, then verify on site. Everything in this guide is 18+ information for adult readers, and info only, no sales.

Try the checks on an actual shop record

Open the dated price records for Balou, Kadinsky or Het Gelderse. Start with the menu date shown on the page, then pick one row and read its category, printed format and price unit. The table is a transcription, not a photograph of a complete original menu. If a name appears more than once, compare the method and producer before treating the rows as the same product. Return to the date before using any number to plan a visit: the archive cannot confirm what is available at the counter today.

Where the numbers live

The map places the shops, the guide collection offers related reading, and the price pages carry the medians and spreads used in comparisons.

Read one line from left to right

Take a line that names a product, prints “5g pack,” shows a total and sits beneath a weed heading. Read those pieces in that order: category first, then named variant, then quantity, then price, and finally the date attached to the source menu. If you divide the pack total by five, label the result as a calculated per-gram rate and keep the original pack total beside it. Do not move that result into the loose-gram column. A line under joints stays a per-piece price because the menu has not supplied a weight to divide. This is the same discipline used by the gram-versus-pack guide. When the heading or unit is missing, mark the comparison uncertain and ask staff rather than filling in the gap yourself.