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By Brianna Smith
If you’re like me, your day starts with coffee. My go-to is a Caribou K-Cup with a splash of vanilla creamer, but I enjoy experimenting with my Nespresso coffee maker and have been trying new flavors and espressos.
If you’re a coffee drinker, you have probably also noticed coffee prices steadily rising during the past few years. Even my husband, a gas station black coffee aficionado, has commented on how much the price of basic coffee has increased in the last year.
According to Toast, which monitors restaurant menus across the country, regular coffee prices jumped 7.4% to $3.77 per cup in the last year. Toast also noted that U.S. coffee prices have fluctuated during the past two years but have risen steadily since February 2023 when median hot coffee prices were $3.00 per cup.
While the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service is anticipating a record crop of coffee beans this year on paper, it is important to note that, like other commodities, coffee is impacted by weather, global events, and trade disruptions. The Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) estimated 189.7 million bags of coffee beans for 2026-2027, which includes the second-largest Arabica harvest on record. The FAS report on coffee is produced biannually and released in June and December. I referenced the latest report from June for this article.
Most of the record-setting crop is expected to be grown in Brazil, which accounts for 40% of the world’s global coffee supply. The country’s combined Arabica and Robusta harvest is forecasted to rise by 8.9 million bags (60 kilograms) to a record 71.9 million in 2026-27. Other countries that are expected to have record-setting yields this year include Ethiopia, Uganda, and Vietnam. India and Indonesia are expected to have lower year-over-year yields.
The last few years in the “Coffee Belt” have not been good to growers. Weather patterns like droughts and flooding have impacted many of these tropical areas, so this forecast is welcome news.
However, recently, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake hit Colombia, impacting the coffee-growing regions of Caldas and Risaralda, which account for one quarter of the country’s coffee production. Colombia is the number two producer of Arabica coffee beans. Markets responded accordingly, with September Arabica pricing rising, but at the time of writing, Colombia was just starting to reopen its port for coffee export.
On top of that, a Super El Niño is here. You can learn more about what that means for Ohio farmers in an article by state climatologist Dr. Aaron Wilson in this edition of Ohio’s Country Journal. What will that mean for coffee, though? The worry is that El Niño could delay Brazil’s September and October rains, which is when flowering happens. While this won’t impact the crop this year, it will greatly impact the next crop.
Like Ohio farmers, coffee farmers are also at the mercy of Mother Nature. So next time you enjoy your morning cup of joe, you can appreciate and relate to the farmers thousands of miles away who helped make it possible.
