After years of serving up iced mochas and Vermont maple lattes to Harford County customers at Coffee Coffee, Hillary Tayson’s family is used to the market bumps. But this year, she says, is different.<\/p>\n
Severe droughts in Brazil and Vietnam diminished coffee bean harvests, and recent trade tariffs\u00a0have further pushed up the wholesale cost of coffee beans, leaving cafe owners struggling with when, how, and by how much they should pass the cost on to consumers.<\/p>\n
“Prices have gone up incredibly,” said Tayson, manager of the now 32-year-old shop at Festival at Bel Air, bought in 2007 by Tayson’s mother, Betsy Depman. “With coffee beans, all of our roasters have had to increase wholesale prices.<\/p>\n
“We have to decide how much of that we want to absorb or pass on,” Tayson said. “You don’t want to pass on all of that all at once. It’s a tricky balance.”<\/p>\n
Consumers already have paid more for coffee in the past year. The average price of 100% ground roast coffee jumped to $8.13 per pound in June, from $6.25 per pound at the same in 2024,<\/a> data from the labor department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.\u00a0A cup of coffee at a U.S. restaurant cost $3.50 in June, on a median basis, a 3.6% annual increase, according to the Toast Menu Price Monitor,<\/a> which tracks industry sales data.<\/p>\n