{"id":330177,"date":"2025-10-24T22:50:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T22:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/330177\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T22:50:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T22:50:11","slug":"tariffs-and-weather-take-a-toll-on-us-coffee-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/330177\/","title":{"rendered":"Tariffs and weather take a toll on US coffee prices"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s getting more expensive for Americans to get their caffeine fix<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The average U.S. price of a pound of ground coffee hit $9.14 in September, a 3% increase from the August average of $8.87 and 41% higher than in September 2024, according to U.S. government figures. Coffee prices have been increasing sharply since the start of this year.<\/p>\n

Consumer prices for food purchased for home use and away from home were 3% in September compared to the same month a year earlier, the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday<\/a>. The consumer price index, which measures a broader sample of all coffee products, including instant coffee<\/a>, showed U.S. coffee prices up 19% from September 2024 and flat compared to August.<\/p>\n

Nikki Bravo, the co-owner of Momentum Coffee in Chicago, raised prices by about 15% last week for lattes, cappuccinos and other drinks at her four locations.<\/p>\n

Bravo said she is paying 15% more for coffee beans compared to a year ago and has started roasting more beans in-house to save money. She gets most of her beans from Africa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other items also have gotten more expensive, such as cups and sleeves, she said. In addition, the minimum wage in Chicago rose July 1 to $16.60 an hour.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point we just had to pass it along, we couldn\u2019t continue to eat it,\u201d Bravo said.<\/p>\n

Stubbornly high inflation<\/a> has also left consumers uncertain and less willing to splash out on a takeout coffee, she added. According to Toast, a restaurant management system, the average price of a regular coffee at U.S. restaurants in September was $3.54 compared to $3.45 a year earlier. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s why java is feeling such a jolt and how some are trying to alleviate it:<\/p>\n

Tariffs<\/p>\n

Outside of Hawaii and Puerto Rico, there are few places in the U.S. that can grow coffee. So 99% of America\u2019s coffee is imported, according to the National Coffee Association, a trade group.<\/p>\n

Brazil<\/a> is the top source for U.S. coffee, supplying 30% of the market. The Trump administration imposed a 40% tariff<\/a> on Brazilian products in July on top of a 10% tariff imposed earlier. Brazilian producers<\/a> have begun withholding shipments to the U.S. as they negotiate with American roasters over who will absorb the added cost, reducing supply in the U.S., according to investment bank UBS.<\/p>\n

Colombia, which supplies 20% of the U.S. coffee market, is subject to a 10% tariff, but President Donald Trump recently threatened higher tariffs<\/a> and an end to U.S. aid to Colombia. Vietnam, which supplies 8% of the U.S. coffee market, has been subject to a 20% tariff<\/a> since the summer. <\/p>\n

In September, Trump announced that \u201cunavailable natural resources\u201d could be exempt from tariffs for countries that have reached trade agreements with the U.S. But so far, coffee hasn\u2019t won any exemptions.<\/p>\n

Weather risks<\/p>\n

Heat, drought and other poor weather conditions<\/a> have hurt coffee production globally in recent years, causing prices to surge. World coffee prices rose nearly 40% in 2024, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, coffee prices rose after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared that La Nina conditions had formed<\/a>. That raised concerns about the possibility of drought in Brazil.<\/p>\n

The risk to coffee production from climate change<\/a> has some researchers trying to develop more climate-resistant varieties of coffee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Congress might step in<\/p>\n

In September, a bipartisan group of U.S. House members introduced a bill that would repeal all tariffs on coffee.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe only produce 1% of the coffee that Americans consume. It\u2019s one of the best examples of Trump\u2019s blanket tariffs making no economic sense,\u201d U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, said. Khanna co-sponsored the bill with U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican.<\/p>\n

Bacon said Friday that he became interested in the issue when he saw how much coffee cost at the grocery store. He said he\u2019s also not a fan of tariffs and thinks Congress \u2014 not the president \u2014 has the power to levy them.<\/p>\n

Bacon said he thinks the Trump administration now realizes that putting tariffs on products that the U.S. can\u2019t grow is bad for consumers, and he\u2019s hopeful the bill will pass.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope the president and Congress see the positive benefit of removing this tariff on everyday Americans,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Durbin reported from Detroit. Rugaber reported from Washington<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s getting more expensive for Americans to get their caffeine fix. The average U.S. price of a pound…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":330178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4214,64,1613,960,10109,10106,12575,112726,69,79,525,11289,57,13790,1612,1165,80,88006,4217,16618,61,67,370,326,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-330177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-brazil","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-central-america","11":"tag-chicago","12":"tag-climate","13":"tag-climate-and-environment","14":"tag-colombia","15":"tag-don-bacon","16":"tag-donald-trump","17":"tag-economy","18":"tag-finance","19":"tag-finance-business","20":"tag-general-news","21":"tag-international-trade","22":"tag-latin-america","23":"tag-lifestyle","24":"tag-politics","25":"tag-ro-khanna","26":"tag-south-america","27":"tag-tariffs-and-global-trade","28":"tag-u-s-news","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-united-states-government","31":"tag-united-states-house-of-representatives","32":"tag-unitedstates","33":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115431592759021173","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}