Why Your Morning Coffee Costs a Little More Right Now

If you’ve checked your receipt lately, you might have noticed a slight bump in the price of your daily pour-over or flat white. At Dockyard Coffee Roasters, we believe in total transparency. We want you to know exactly what goes into your cup, and right now, the biggest factor changing the math is international trade.

Here is the short, simple story behind the recent price shifts.

The Tax on Green Beans

Over the past year, the U.S. has rolled out new tariffs (import taxes) on goods coming from overseas. The coffee industry was caught right in the middle.

Major coffee-producing countries, like Brazil and Vietnam, suddenly faced border taxes ranging from 10% to over 40%. Even though Dockyard buys high-grade specialty beans, when the world's biggest coffee suppliers get taxed, the baseline price of all coffee around the globe shoots up.

The Ripple Effect

You might wonder how a 10% tax on a sack of raw, green beans turns into a noticeable price hike on a single latte. It comes down to how coffee is made.

When we buy raw coffee, we aren't just paying for the bean itself. We are also paying for:

• Shipping and Warehousing: Moving heavy burlap sacks of coffee across the globe.

• Roasting Weight Loss: Coffee beans lose about 15% to 20% of their water weight when we roast them, so it takes more raw beans to make a single pound of roasted coffee.

• Labor and Materials: The hands, energy, and packaging required to get the coffee onto our shelves.

The Bottom Line: When the starting cost of the raw ingredient jumps up, that extra expense ripples through every single step of the supply chain. Ultimately, it costs us more to brew the exact same cup.

Our Promise to You

We are doing everything we can to absorb these costs behind the scenes.

What we won't do is compromise. We refuse to buy cheaper, lower-grade beans, and we absolutely will not shortchange the hardworking farmers we partner with. Instead, we are finding ways to roast more efficiently and signing long-term contracts to lock in fair prices for everyone.

Thank you for continuing to support independent roasters. Every cup you buy helps keep the sustainable coffee supply chain moving forward.