Coffee Shops Are Starting to Raise Prices Due to Trump’s Tariffs

Don’t be surprised if your next cup of coffee costs more.

Coffee shops in the US have begun to pass along tariff costs straight to customers’ wallets.

Though President Donald Trump put a 90-pause on most of his reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday, his 10% blanket levies remain in effect. Some coffee importers and cafés are now raising their prices in response.

“That erases our entire profit margin if we absorb it,” Chris Kornman, the director of education at the importer Royal Coffee, told Business Insider. He called the situation “an unprecedented crisis” for the coffee industry.

The Crown, a specialty coffee shop that Royal owns in Oakland, California, announced across-the-board price increases on Thursday. All of its drinks will cost an additional 50 cents from now on, Kornman said, with the exception of its $2 dark roast, which is an entry-level drink for customers who aren’t used to a natural-processed pour-over or washed Rwandan espresso.

“Unless we get a resolution in Washington soon, this appears to be the new normal, unfortunately,” Max Nicholas-Fulmer, the CEO of Royal Coffee, said in a statement shared with BI.

Other coffee shops have also announced price hikes. The Wakery, an Illinois-based late-night coffeehouse, posted a statement to Facebook on Wednesday informing customers that it would be increasing the price of all of its coffee drinks due to the tariffs.

“Our coffee supplier needed to raise their wholesale price, and in order to make our ends meet, we need to respond by raising our coffee prices,” it said.

Local reports also indicate that cafés in Austin, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and New Jersey are raising their prices or considering doing so.

Just the beginning

TJ Semanchin, co-owner of Wonderstate Coffee, told BI a 10% increase for a cup of coffee is only “the starting point.”

The US is the second largest coffee importer in the world, with Brazil, Colombia, and Vietnam making up around 60% of its coffee supply, according to a 2024 United States Department of Agriculture report. Before he announced pauses to some of the country-specific increases on Wednesday, Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs varied by country, with a 46% rate for Vietnam and 10% for both Brazil and Colombia. The blanket 10% tariffs remain for all three countries.

“The coffee market is getting zigzagged in every direction because there’s so much uncertainty and volatility in everything,” Semanchin said.

Uncertainty summer

Shop owners say tariff whiplash doesn’t help. When Trump initially announced 25% tariffs on Mexico, Kornman said staff at Royal Coffee scrambled to scale back its Mexican coffee purchases and notify customers that it might charge more for those beans. Now, Mexico’s agricultural products aren’t affected. Royal has stopped buying coffee from India in case its tariffs go up to 27%, as Trump initially proposed.

“To quote our logistics coordinator, we’re digging holes in all the wrong places,” Kornman said.

Pierre and Jackie Marquez, who own Tasa Coffee Roasters in Chicago, say they already bumped up their prices in February because of overall rising costs. If Trump’s reciprocal tariffs go into effect at the end of his 90-day pause, the Marquez’s say they’ll have to increase prices again.

“It’s almost a guarantee,” Pierre Marquez said.

Domestic coffee production is largely limited to Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and small parts of California. Those farms can’t replace coffee imports, Kornman said.

The cost of coffee beans was already creeping upward before Trump’s tariffs, due in part to shipping costs and extra-warm weather in Brazil, he added.

“There’s also the threat of a global recession on the table at the moment, and that makes it pretty unsavory to talk about raising prices when people may not be able to afford a cup of coffee,” Kornman said.

“I don’t expect to raise prices again in an ideal world,” he added. Still, “it’s really hard to predict.”