Coffee Is Expensive Already, Are Prices Going To Skyrocket?

Coffee Beans

For being one of the most traded commodities in the world, there really isn’t much consumer knowledge around the actual sourcing of most coffee beans. Often times, the emphasis is on the roaster which is usually a brand. There’s the giants like Starbucks, Illy, Nestle / Nespresso, which may allude to where the beans are from in a general sense. Unless, it’s claiming to be a premium single-source coffee, its a blend taken from many sources and questionable quality. Furthermore, the reason most cheap coffee is dark roasted to hide things like mold or staleness. 

I’d much rather go with a specialty roaster like Verve, who offer everything from single-source to blends in all roast types (they even make an instant coffee that’s actually good and worth keeping some in your travel bag in case your only option is the gas station). On a recent visit to their location near Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz, two bags caught my eye. One was a collaboration with the Grateful Dead (obviously got that one) and then a special single-source from the Urrao region in Antioquia, Colombia. Apparently this particular farm is working on growing a new type of climate-resistant bean as many coffee crops have been wiped out in recent years due to blights and droughts.

“Coffee’s next chapter is being written now—cultivated by producers who are growing more than just crops—they’re growing the future.” 

Verve

The bag was printed with the message above as well as the following information,  “Coffee is at a crossroads. Climate change, platy disease, and a volatile global economy threaten the crops that fuel our mornings and support entire communities. But the future of coffee isn’t a question mark—it’s being built. Seed by seed, by the producers who’ve always known what the land needs.”

How Do You Like It?

Even before the tariffs, coffee shop prices are out of control. Without going too deep into the subject I’ll say this; it’s not like coffee shop owners all want to screw you over, they’re not actively conspiring like some secret cabal to drain of your hard earned dollars. It’s more so that they too have to pay rent and, guess what, if your favorite coffee shop is located in a coastal area then their rent prices have also gone up astronomically. If you talk to older heads they’ll recount the days before the cortado and the $8 latte, the days when you had one ordering option: coffee, black. Cream and sugar were about all you could do to switch it up. 

At some point, the Italians learned how to freebase coffee and they called this wonderful drink espresso. While everyone else had been sipping equivalent of light beer, they learned to mainline whisky and changed the world in the process. The cultures today remain distinct, in the US we often get larger drinks like Americanos, lattes, or pour over, and we often get it to go. For Europeans, espresso still reigns king and its typically enjoyed in demitasse cups while seated at sidewalk cafes. In Australia, coffee shop culture goes hard and from what I understand, the flat white is the most popular order, at least in New South Wales. 

Anyways, the cultures have merged and now all variations of black gold are found throughout the US. Where you consume and prepare your coffee has a huge effect on its price. Gas stations may still have cheap coffee but you get what you pay for—cheap, burnt, old, coffee.  Are you at a bougie cafe or health food spot? Yep, get ready to fork over nearly $10 for an espresso drink with your favorite alt milk + tip. Thanks, but I’d rather not.  

Do It Yourself

Try as I might, I can't understand the folks who hit a coffee shop for their daily brew. Why wouldn't you just do it yourself at home? Nowadays, it's not hard to make a great cup with the right gear (and you'll save $$$). There’s plenty of cheap coffee makers out there, one quick search will result in tons of options from coffee makers, to French Presses, to pour overs, to espresso machines. For the sake of brevity, I’ll dive into a solid option for a self-respecting home without the time to fuss. The Fellow Aiden has been a sweet addition in the home/office kitchen especially if paired with a proper grinder.

I like it because you can select the type of roast you have and how many cups you want and it’ll tell you the suggested weight. Once you’ve got to know the flavor of that ration, you can dial it up or down based on your preference. This ensures you’re not going to end up with a watered down batch on those mornings you really need all the boost you can get. It looks good on the counter and it can even be programmed to brew at a certain time so you’ve got hot coffee ready exactly when you need it to be to make it out for dawn patrol or ready for the workday. 

If you like the bulletproof style like myself, the best results come from blending at high speed for ~ 30 seconds to ensure a nice frothy finish. For this, I got a refurbished Vitamix and then opted for the fancy metal top because I try and avoid boiling hot liquids and plastic, call me crazy but microplastics freak me out. 

A simpler (and far cheaper) version of this is to get a frother. Again, there are tons of them out there but I found one that’s legit and that goes with me on every trip. It’s from Maestri House and you can get it on Amazon for $30. Its powerful enough to properly whip up your oils and can be charged by USB-C. Most places don’t have bullet coffees on the menu, so this thing is a game changer on the road.