Record high coffee costs mean price changes could be brewing

Callie Martino has not raised coffee prices at Crazy Beans since she opened her first location in Miller Place more than 10 years ago.

That may need to change soon, as Martino and her husband, Tim — who together own and operate Crazy Beans in Miller Place, Stony Brook and Greenport — face a slew of unprecedented cost hikes from suppliers, especially for coffee, which hit new highs this summer.

"I'm so afraid to raise our prices, even though I know I need to, because of the rising costs of coffee and espresso beans and syrups and everything that goes into running a coffee shop — it's gone up tremendously," she said. Right now, they charge $2.50 for a small to-go cup and $3.25 for a refillable mug to stay.

Still, Martino has hesitated to change costs saying, "How high can I raise the price for a cup of coffee before the customer stops coming in completely?"

How high can I raise the price for a cup of coffee before the customer stops coming in completely?

— Callie Martino, co-owner of Crazy Beans

Tariffs and weather concerns in Brazil, a top coffee grower, have led to climbing prices for a cup of joe around the country and on Long Island. The average price for a pound of ground roast coffee in U.S. cities hit $8.87 in August, an all-time high, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Meanwhile, the national median cost to buy a regular hot coffee hit $3.52 in August, according to data from Toast, a restaurant software company. In New York, the median was $3.89, a 5.6% increase from last year.

Median price for a cup of coffee in New York was

$3.89

in August, according to Toast.

While data was not immediately available on the average cost for a cuppa on Long Island, experts said rising prices for coffee beans are still an issue for area businesses. 

"On Long Island, where rent, labor and transport costs are already among the highest in the country, the problem is even worse," said Marty Bauer, retail and ecommerce expert at Omnisend, an ecommerce marketing platform.

To adapt to higher costs, Long Island cafes may need to "raise prices not only on coffee but also on extras like syrups or pastries," he said in an email.

Why is coffee getting more expensive?

Bad weather, pests, increasing labor costs and tariffs facing large coffee producers like Brazil and Vietnam have led to a "30-40% jump in raw bean prices from last year," Bauer said. "Bigger chains have enough buying power to absorb some of the costs, but for smaller, local businesses, every extra cent on bean prices matters."

Higher prices could lead to fewer independent cafes, less menu variety and more shops relying on cheaper blends, he said.

Coffee prices have been so volatile that Georgio Testani, owner of Georgio's Coffee Roasters in Farmingdale and Stony Brook, said he watches the numbers change while he's roasting.

As a seller of "high-end, rare coffees," Georgio's Coffee Roasters is "used to paying extremely high prices" and has so far escaped unscathed from the market volatility, Testani said.

But high industry prices will likely have a widespread impact on other companies, forcing some to "cheapen their blends as best as they can," he added. "Otherwise, they won't survive."

Obtaining the coffee needed to roast and brew for customers at a desirable quality and price point has become increasingly difficult, said Matt Bachmann, co-founder of Wandering Bear Coffee, a boxed cold brew company based in New York City with a large Long Island customer base.

Small roasters — who don't have the capital to absorb market shocks — have been hit the hardest, he said, adding: "We are in a prolonged period of record high coffee prices."

Small businesses reluctant to raise prices

Wandering Bear Coffee raised prices earlier this year but has otherwise tried to avoid passing costs on to customers, Bachmann said, a decision that has cut into profitability as the company waits for the market to find an "equilibrium."

"It's an everyday business challenge. Things are just more expensive now," said Greg Zakowicz, ecommerce adviser to Omnisend. "There's a threshold for how much [customers are] willing to pay for a cup of coffee."

For smaller businesses, "they're kind of damned if they do, damned if they don't," he added. They have to cover costs and make a profit, "so they've got to start charging more for coffee. At some point, consumers are going to have fatigue."

There's a threshold for how much [customers are] willing to pay for a cup of coffee.

— Greg Zakowicz, Omnisend ecommerce adviser

The problem with prices lies more with their volatility than increased costs, Bachmann said, pointing out that farmers need to earn a living wage and money to invest into growing quality crops.

"But the volatility is very hard to plan around," he added. "I think many companies are absorbing some or a lot of increased costs in an effort to try not to create too many waves, too much volatility with retailers and consumers," he said. "The question is, how long can that last?"

Like Wandering Bear Coffee and Crazy Beans, Cafe Aroma has tried to avoid raising prices by working with trade partners to "manage risks in quality control, price forecasting and logistics," said Bernadette Gerrity, vice president at the Cuban-style espresso brand based in Hoboken, New Jersey, with products sold at Barryville General Goods in Southampton.

The company is "working through existing inventories, carefully importing from regions where tariff exposure is more predictable and buying opportunistically when the market dips," she said, adding that the company has tried to become more efficient operationally to make up for higher costs.

'Unprecedented' volatility

But, Gerrity said, industry uncertainty in recent years has been "unprecedented."

"Tariff risks on Brazilian exports, strong global demand for Vietnamese robusta [a type of coffee bean], and supply pressures in other major coffee-growing regions like Colombia, Honduras, and Guatemala have created an environment where pricing and availability are more unpredictable than ever," she said in an email.

Cafe Aroma started to notice price fluctuations as far back as 2021, she said, with coffee costs hitting record highs in 2024 and 2025.

"From the most basic standpoint, we were trading below $2.00 a pound in 2023. In 2025 we've seen levels about $4.00 a pound," Gerrity said. "That ... doesn't even take into account the implications of tariffs or variations in shipping costs."

Coffee beans from Brazil, historically an affordable producer, has become much more expensive with tariffs, said Greg Peters, vice president at Talitha Coffee, a San Diego-based coffee chain.

"We aren't booking any Brazil contracts right now," he said. The company is searching for suppliers from other countries instead, but higher demand, combined with impacts of bad weather and climate change, has led to high prices everywhere else too.

Last month, a bipartisan delegation proposed a congressional bill to repeal tariffs on coffee with one co-sponsor, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), noting that the United States  is unable to grow coffee at a commercial scale.

Will coffee prices go back down? Zakowicz isn't so sure.

Once consumers get used to paying more for something, it's unlikely that prices will drop, even if operating costs ease, he said.

But when it comes to the grabbing an old fashioned cup of coffee from a shop, Zakowicz said, "It's an experiential thing. I don't think that's going anywhere anytime soon."