“This isn’t going to work anymore”

Atlanta roasters reconsider how much a cup of coffee should cost

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Illustration by Khoa Tran

By January, the signs that Portrait Coffee needed to raise its prices were there. “It was honestly working backwards and looking at all the channels that we sell coffee through and realizing, oh, this isn't gonna work anymore,” said Portrait co-founder and CEO Aaron Fender. 

Coffee prices were already the highest they’d been in 50 years. Supply had continued to dwindle from the disruptive impact of climate change and supply chain issues, but demand was still high: More than two-thirds of Americans drink coffee every day—and consume more coffee than tea, juice, soda, or bottled water. Atlanta, too, is fueled by a robust, independent coffee scene. By one estimate, out of 200-plus coffee shops in metro Atlanta, more than 40 of them are also roasters.

“It was honestly working backwards and looking at all the channels that we sell coffee through and realizing, oh, this isn’t gonna work anymore.” —Portrait co-founder and CEO Aaron Fender

Soon, Fender realized he couldn’t afford not to raise prices on coffee beans, which Portrait Coffee roasts for its own West End cafe, wholesale customers, and Coffee Club subscribers. So he wrote an email—subject line “A Note on Coffee Pricing”—explaining the reasons behind the five to eight percent price increase for specific blends. A standard bag of Portrait’s Toni blend used to cost $16; this year that same bag has cost as much as $17.25. (Looming tariffs are expected to drive costs even higher.)

Fender was delivering the news to customers who were already cost-conscious. Beans are the company’s top seller, in part, because it’s more affordable to brew your coffee at home than to buy it outside. “Some folks can afford to come in and buy an Aunt Viv latte every day,” Fender says, referencing the cafe’s cardamom-flavored specialty. “I can’t. But some people can.”

In recent months, Portrait has started selling two- and five-pound bags to offer even bigger bulk savings. “We’ve seen our direct-to-consumer sales explode. Part of that, I think, is people being really price-sensitive,” Fender says. In the past year, the cost of coffee has risen by 80 percent. 

“We’ve seen our direct-to-consumer sales explode. Part of that, I think, is people being really price-sensitive.” —Portrait co-founder and CEO Aaron Fender

Yet the sort of customer who buys an Aunt Viv at the cafe isn’t as likely to notice market forces at work. “What increased a little bit more is the retail bag to make coffee at home,” explained Lucas Cuadros, co-founder of Unblended Coffee, the Colombia-based green, or unroasted, coffee supplier that partners with multiple roasters in metro Atlanta, including Portrait, Brash, and Opo. 

Companies buy green coffee beans to roast through futures—contracts to reserve shipments months or even years in advance. Early this year, traders, including hedge funds, snapped up what was left of an already-short coffee supply. After Fender wrote his email, coffee futures prices were $3.60 per pound. The next month, when Portrait’s price adjustments became effective, coffee futures jumped to $4.30 per pound. Today, they’re back at $3.75, which is still nearly double what green coffee cost just a couple of years ago—and it’s the new normal that small roasters like Portrait are trying to navigate.

The way Fender and Cuadros describe the market, one can’t help but compare it to how Wall Street spent billions buying homes nationwide, driving up prices and making houses scarce. “It’s multinational groups that are buying, contracting coffee at volume and scale,” Fender says. “The impact I’m sharing on Portrait is also happening to Folgers and Nestlé. It’s kind of crazy, but we’re all functioning on the same market.”

Still, large companies like Starbucks may not feel as vulnerable, because they likely bought their supply of coffee at yesterday’s price—after all, they can afford to buy futures well in advance. Smaller companies, however, can’t afford to be as impervious.

Across Atlanta, other small roasters are feeling the strain too. “It’s kind of scary, because we are a small business, in comparison to a lot of them in Atlanta,” says Marissa Childers, founder of Tanbrown Coffee. The company, founded in 2022, employs two people, including herself, and bags 100 to 150 pounds of coffee per week. 

“It’s kind of scary, because we are a small business, in comparison to a lot of them in Atlanta.” —Tanbrown Coffee founder Marissa Childers

Because Tanbrown specializes in sourcing as many Asian coffees as possible, the price increase to source beans hasn’t been quite as stark. “I’ve seen a lot of South American coffees go from $3 to $6 [per pound]. Whereas Asian coffees, they were already at $5 to $6 per pound,” Childers says. They can be closer to $7 a pound now. Still, the week before Childers spoke with the Cost of Living Project, she notified Tanbrown’s wholesale customers that the company needed to raise its coffee prices for the first time—by 12 percent. Now, thanks to this presidential administration’s tariffs, prices could increase again. “There could be more changes in the future depending on the government’s decisions,” she explained.

“There could be more changes in the future depending on the government’s decisions.” —Tanbrown Coffee founder Marissa Childers

“There has been a little bit of pushback,” Childers said. But she also figures that the more coffee prices climb, the more the people fueled by coffee must reckon with the living wages that their daily cup is supposed to cover. Not just the baristas, of course, but also the farmers who grow the beans, when the cost to import fertilizer has also increased since the Russia-Ukraine war. That’s why, even before recent coffee prices set a new record, Childers believed a cup of drip coffee should cost more than $3.50.

“ Coffee is probably as complex as the winemaking process, and it goes through different hands, but it’s interesting that it’s not respected in the same way,” Childers told the Cost of Living Project. “It’s technically an accessible luxury for people to have every day.” 

The supply chain is “lopsided,” she explained: “Not enough money has been supporting the bookends—namely, the baristas or the farmers. It would be surprising to consumers to see how much a cup of coffee should cost if we were looking toward a more equitable supply chain.”

“Not enough money has been supporting the bookends—namely, the baristas or the farmers. It would be surprising to consumers to see how much a cup of coffee should cost if we were looking toward a more equitable supply chain.” —Tanbrown Coffee founder Marissa Childers

She is hopeful, though, that a place like Atlanta, “that really likes local business and has that small city, big town kind of vibe,” can be more empathetic toward all that $3.50 is supposed to cover. “I think once we bring it back to a human level, everyone has more of a connection to it, especially in spaces more connected to farmers markets and local community.”

Meanwhile, the conversations that Fender has had since his email have surprised him. “Literally not a single negative comment—or even anyone being like, I don’t get it—which I was shocked by,” he said.

Going into the 2024 presidential election, voters were frustrated by the price of consumer goods; Fender says he wasn’t excited to add to that frustration. “ I think people are seeing it affect every area of their life, which is unfortunate. But I guess what I’ve seen is people are much more open-minded about where that cause-and-effect stems from, right? It’s not Portrait trying to nickel-and-dime you.” •