On supermarket shelves and café menus, coffee keeps getting dearer. I want to answer "why did it get expensive" from the origin side, using only numbers that can be checked. And one more thing: I want to note that a price surge is not simply good news for origins.
Arabica futures (ICE New York) hit a record US$4.41 per pound in February 2025. That came after a rise of about 70% across 2024 and a further climb into 2025. It is more than three times the level of early 2020.
In 2026 the picture turned to violent swings. On 9 June it fell to a roughly two-year low (around $2.39), then bounced to a two-month high by month end. By the International Coffee Organization's composite indicator too, it swung from tens of percent down to +17% within weeks. High, and shaking hard. That is the market now.
The main cause of the surge is supply, not speculation. The two great origins that supply about half the world were hit by climate at the same time.
Brazil suffered drought and heat in 2024, centred on the main region of Minas Gerais (USDA annual report). Drought disrupts the flowering of coffee trees, and the effect lingers in the next season's and the following season's yields. Vietnam's 2023/24 harvest fell about 20% year on year to 24.5 million bags (announced by the industry body VICOFA), among the smallest of the past decade. The following season did not recover either.
A fruit tree's wounds do not heal in a year. So even when a forecast of a good 2026/27 Brazilian crop eases the market, it jumps every time news arrives of delayed harvests or thin stocks. A market whose cushion of inventory has thinned shakes hard even on small news.
Now the farm. People sometimes say "good for you that prices rose". Half right. There are certainly moments of tailwind for a seller. But in the field it looks different.
First, coffee was not the only price to rise. Fertiliser, materials and labour rose too. Second, volatility scrambles investment decisions. Nobody knows where the market will be three years from now, when trees planted on the strength of this year's high price come into harvest. Third, an origin that had a bad harvest has no beans to sell at the high price in the first place. Since the surge began with a shortfall, that follows naturally.
So the profit of a surge falls to those who hold stock and those who happened to have a good crop. To the origins actually struck by climate, it falls less than you would think. This asymmetry deserves to be better known.
For a small farm like ours, the way to survive an era of swings lies, we believe, outside the market rather than inside it. Making prices directly with drinkers and roasters, on the basis of quality and records. Futures move on weather and speculation; "the value of this lot from this farm" moves on quality. And quality, unlike the market, can be controlled by our own effort.
When you are tired of price-rise news, remember: beyond the cup there is a farm, not a market. And the value of a farm can be recorded in numbers.
Nobody can say for certain, but climate-driven supply anxiety is structural and tree damage lingers two to three years. The view that "high and volatile is the new normal" is becoming the industry consensus.
Some producers benefit from the market, but fertiliser, materials and labour rise at the same time, and volatility scrambles next season's investment decisions. Some origins have no volume to sell after a bad harvest.
It is affected, but less tied to the market. Prices in direct trade based on quality and trust move more gently than the swings of the futures market.
For the market seen from the regulatory side see EUDR seen from a small farm; for creating value through records, What is the Data Bank; for protecting quality in a boom, Keeping quality when the market doubles.
Follow this record. New measurements, stories and lot releases from LAOS — delivered to your inbox first.
New records and lot releases, delivered to your inbox first.
New lots, drying updates and field notes — every Friday, in one short letter.