Coffee lovers likely to pay more in wake of jump in bean prices
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The cost of a cup of joe is on the rise at coffee shops.
If the price of her $3.25 cup of Americano coffee goes up too much, Piper Anke of Derry is among those who say they would consider drinking less.
Anke, 18, is a student at Seton Hill University. She works at a corporate coffee shop and enjoys the Americano at The White Rabbit Café and Pâtisserie on Main Street in Greensburg.
“I can’t necessarily afford to do it as I did previously,” depending on the increase, said Anke, who also has seen increases at the corporate coffee shop where she works.
Factors including stress in growing regions in Asia, South America, Central America and Africa along with rising shipping costs and ongoing demand for coffee has created a perfect storm for a price hike, according to coffee shop owners and roasters.
White Rabbit owner Tom Medley said he has been holding prices steady, even though the cost of coffee has risen the past few years. That however, will change next week, when he implements a price increase, Medley said.
One of the roasters of the green coffee beans he buys has raised prices by 20%, year over year, Medley said Monday.
“We can eat that cost for a couple of years or do a minimal increase,” Medley said, noting that his cafe can go through about 400 pounds of coffee beans in a month.
At Harvest Moon Coffee & Chocolates, owner Desiree Singleton said she’s seen prices creeping up in recent months.
“We don’t want to pass all of this cost on to customers,” Singleton said.
Her original location on Corbet Street in Tarentum was followed in 2023 by a storefront in Heights Plaza, just off Freeport Road in Harrison.
“Things already have happened and I don’t know exactly what the cause is, but prices have gone up,” said Singleton, who owns two shops within miles of each other.
Singleton buys most of her coffee beans wholesale from LaPrima Espresso on Pittsburgh’s North Side.
“I know what they used to pay per pound, and I know on our end the wholesale prices have had to go up,” she said.
She started roasting her own coffee beans, while continuing to buy off La Prima, in order to cut costs.
“We’re trying to even it out,” Singleton said.
Singleton said she is not buying Colombian beans, which jumped in wholesale price from $2.10 per pound in October 2023 to $3.06 per pound in November 2024, according to the International Coffee Organization, a London-based intergovernmental organization established through the United Nations.
No surprise
The higher cost of the coffee beans hasn’t surprised Doug Pinto, owner of Steel Cup Coffee Roasters in New Kensington, because he has been watching prices inch up for about two years.
“The price of beans has doubled,” Pinto said.
Coffee bean prices had accelerated in late 2024 when concerns over Brazil’s production — amid adverse weather lowering the crop size — gathered momentum, Saxo Bank’s Ole Hansen said.
Continuous Arabica coffee futures on the International Coffee Exchange rose 0.1% to $3.48 a pound in volatile trading in Europe, though they are up more than 40% over the past three months and 79% on the year. Arabica set a record of $3.56 a pound earlier in the session Monday, exceeding the prior record of $3.48 set in early December.
Pinto cited drought and shipping costs for the hike, saying all factors are incorporated into the overall cost per pound.
The increase has forced him to bump prices at his 10th Street shop.
“It’s sad because you don’t want to pass it on to the consumers, but the margins just got too tight,” he said.
Zack Dreskler, who owns DV8 Espresso Bar & Gallery in Greensburg, said he may have to resort to raising prices for the first time since he took over ownership of the shop on South Pennsylvania Avenue three years ago.
“This is the year it’s going to have to happen,” Dreskler said, prior to placing a new coffee order Monday afternoon.
“Everything is going up (in price). It’s a struggle not to raise my prices every day. We want to keep the doors open,” Dreskler said.
Drought conditions
Global weather changes in Africa, Vietnam and Brazil are hurting the coffee market, said Jordan Nicholas, president of Pittsburgh-based Nicholas Coffee & Tea Co., which roasts green coffee beans and sells the product to retailers including Shop ‘n Save supermarkets.
A drought in Vietnam, the No. 1 producer of Robusta beans, resulted in coffee producers missing their projections by 20%. The availability of fewer Robusta beans put pressure on the price of Arabica beans, which are popular in Italy for espresso, Nicholas said.
“The green coffee bean market is the determining factor in how much you pay for coffee,” Nicholas said.
Worldwide shipping costs also are a factor, and that’s also affected by pirates, Nicholas said. Brazil has coffee to ship but lacks a sufficient number of ocean shipping containers, he said.
All of those factors have pushed prices to higher levels. Green coffee beans, before undergoing the roasting process, were $1.95 a pound a year ago and are now at $3.15 a pound, with prices projected to hit $3.48 a pound in two weeks, said Nicholas, whose company may buy 44,000 pounds of green beans in a month.
“You have to scramble to find coffee (beans),” he said. “There’s no relief to what I am seeing.”
For Kachina Mooney of Homestead, an art therapy professor at Seton Hill University, whether her coffee consumption continues at the same level will depend upon the price increase.
“We want to support local business. We’re aware of the pricing pressure,” Mooney said Monday.
Consumers are used to seeing higher prices across the board, from groceries to gas and everything in between, Pinto said.
But Pinto’s fortunate that demand for a good cup of coffee remains unchanged.
“People are willing to pay a little extra to get them going in the morning,” he said.