Earlier in 2025, world coffee prices hit a record high and have remained at near-historic levels. According to the Klatch Coffee team, several factors are at play when analyzing the trends toward higher coffee prices. While each factor individually may cause small increases, the combination of factors has created the “perfect storm” for rising coffee prices.
Founder and Roastmaster of Klatch Coffee, Mike Perry, who serves as Klatch Coffee’s green coffee buyer, shares what’s driving record coffee prices and why they’ve remained at near-record historical levels. Perry travels often to establish and maintain direct relationships with producers in countries like El Salvador and Panama.
How weather variability affects coffee prices
Weather variability impacts coffee prices, including droughts, frosts and freezes, and flooding due to heavy rain. These weather factors significantly impact coffee production in countries like Brazil, the world’s largest Arabica coffee producer, and Vietnam, the world’s largest Robusta coffee producer.
Given the world’s reliance on these countries for coffee bean production, weather conditions can greatly reduce the total amount of “green coffee” offered for sale on the world market. Green coffee is the industry term for unroasted coffee, which must be sourced, imported, roasted, and packaged before it can be sold to the general public. Less-than-ideal weather conditions in these coffee-growing regions have recently caused a decreased supply of green coffee beans, driving a price increase.
Uncertainty around tariffs
Per Perry, the uncertainty surrounding potential tariffs on imports from Colombia to the United States has also increased coffee prices. While this tariff was retracted, such an increase would have affected imports of Colombian coffee, the world’s third leading producer.
“While floating a tariff increase might only be a temporary tactic designed with future negotiations in mind, fear of new tariffs creates uncertainty, and speculation and panic buying ahead of possible future tariff increases are driving coffee prices higher,” he says. The new April 2025 tariffs are a moving target and change daily. Coffee on the world market is tracked and sold on the C market. Today’s coffee pricing is slightly below all-time highs in February. While not at the record today, this coffee pricing is still extremely high compared to historical levels.
Supply and demand
The consumption of coffee is generally stable within the United States, however, the coffee market in countries like China continues to grow and expand. Given this, American importers and coffee roasters are competing for “a supply of green coffee which is sold on the world market – and there is simply more competition for a product with a limited supply compared to prior years,” says Perry.
Additionally, in an environment where coffee prices are on an upward trend, some producers have began to hold back their supply, hoping to capitalize on even higher prices in the future. In turn, this led to coffee shortages, increasing prices as buyers bid up prices on the smaller supply.
The future of the coffee market
Over the past couple of months, coffee prices have fluctuated, yet pricing still remains historically very high. Though there are quite a few factors that are contributing to the price changes, many are optimistic that the worst may be over for now as coffee prices will ideally begin to stabilize throughout the rest of 2025.
According to Perry, “[Coffee] importers, roasters, and retailers will be carefully watching weather trends over the coming months: favorable weather in Brazil could mean a large crop (lowering prices), while more drought or other problems might signal even higher record prices. When coffee prices on the world market rise, consumers will see higher prices in their local cafes or on the grocery shelves. However, price increases may take a while to reach end consumers because of the time needed for harvesting, processing, shipping, roasting, and distributing roasted coffee beans.
“Additionally, it’s possible that importers, roasters, and coffee retailers may try to absorb price increases before immediately passing them on,” he says. Perry shares that Klatch Coffee’s goal is “to delay increases for as long as possible to avoid impacting customers, always attempting to deliver a great experience—even when [it] eventually has no choice but to raise prices.”
The value of specialty coffee
Despite rising coffee prices, Klatch Coffee says great specialty coffee is still an incredible value. As roasters and cafes work on menu designs to stay competitive, the experience of sitting down for a few moments of “calm and relaxation with a cup prepared by an expert barista is still well worth the experience.”
Perry adds, “Finally, although newsworthy, recent price increases are still small when viewing the big picture. After several years of absorbing price increases without passing them on to our customers, this past January, Klatch Coffee finally had to raise prices on a few of our products. The net increase? It costs about $0.10 per cup of brewed coffee. While inflation is a very hot topic and justifiably on everyone’s mind, those increases shouldn’t stop anyone from enjoying their favorite cup!”
