When people ask what has changed most since I started Urban Calm Coffee, I can talk for a long time about the women producers in Timaná, Huila, the way our roasting has evolved and the mushroom coffee category we have built around it.
But there is another answer that is much less romantic: coffee got expensive.
Green coffee prices have climbed, fallen and climbed again. Freight, packaging and operating costs have moved too. Weather in Brazil or Viet Nam can show up in a Canadian roaster’s purchasing decisions months later. Trade policy can rattle futures even when the coffee I buy enters Canada duty-free.
This is what those headlines look like from my side of the roastery.
The coffee price shock was real
The sharp rise was not just something small roasters imagined. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported that world coffee prices increased 38.8 percent in 2024 compared with the 2023 average. By December 2024, Arabica prices were 58 percent higher than a year earlier and Robusta prices were 70 percent higher in real terms.
The market did not simply reset afterward. The International Coffee Organization’s Composite Indicator Price averaged 296.89 U.S. cents per pound in January 2026, fell to 256.05 cents in May, then rose to 287.26 cents in July. Those swings are a good illustration of the environment roasters have been buying in: elevated, volatile and sensitive to every new piece of supply news.
For a small business, volatility is almost as difficult as a high price. A stable expensive ingredient can be planned around. A major input that moves quickly makes inventory, retail pricing and margin decisions much harder.
Weather is still at the centre of the story
Coffee is unusually exposed to weather because it grows well within fairly specific climate conditions. FAO linked much of the 2024 price surge to supply disruptions and adverse weather in major producing countries, including Brazil, Viet Nam and Indonesia.
The long-term issue is bigger than one bad harvest. World Coffee Research warns that without adaptation, land suitable for coffee production could decline substantially by 2050, with frequently cited research putting the potential loss at up to 50 percent of currently suitable land.
That does not mean half the world’s coffee disappears on a specific date. Farmers can adapt through varieties, shade, irrigation, farm practices and, in some places, movement to different elevations. But adaptation costs money, takes time and adds risk to a crop that is already difficult to produce.
When I look at a green-coffee price chart, I am not just looking at traders. I am looking at a supply chain that starts with farmers working through heat, rainfall changes, pests and increasingly unpredictable seasons.
A bag of coffee contains more costs than coffee
Green coffee is the most obvious input, but it is not the only one. Every finished bag also carries the cost of packaging, labels, freight, roasting energy, labour, warehousing, payment processing and the cost of getting the order to a customer or retailer.
At Urban Calm, I see those changes in supplier quotes and landed costs. A packaging increase may look small on one bag, but multiply it across a production run and then add higher green-coffee costs and outbound shipping. That is how several modest increases become a meaningful business decision.
This is why a retail price change is rarely explained by one headline. It is usually the combined effect of several parts of the supply chain moving in the same direction.
Canada does not charge duty on the green coffee I import
One fact is worth clearing up because tariff conversations can become confusing very quickly. Under Canada’s 2026 Customs Tariff, unroasted, non-decaffeinated coffee enters under tariff item 0901.11.00 with an MFN tariff of Free. In plain English, Canada does not add a normal customs duty to the green coffee itself.
That does not make Canadian roasters immune to trade policy elsewhere. In 2025, U.S. tariffs on Brazilian goods jolted the coffee market and contributed to a sharp move in New York Arabica futures as American buyers tried to understand where supply would come from. The policy landscape changed again afterward, including exemptions in 2026.
That history is useful, but it should not be turned into a permanent explanation for today’s price. Tariffs can move trade flows and futures. Weather, production, inventories, shipping and demand still matter enormously. For me, the lesson is simply that a roaster can be affected by policy decisions in a market where we are not even the importer.
Direct relationships do not make us immune to world prices
Urban Calm’s coffee is connected to women-led farms in Timaná through ASPROTIMANA. That relationship matters to me because the coffee has a place and producer community behind it rather than disappearing into an anonymous commodity story.
But direct and traceable sourcing should not be described as a magic way to escape market economics. Farmers still face higher labour costs, climate pressure and volatile world prices. Exporters and logistics partners still have costs. If anything, knowing more about the supply chain makes it harder to pretend that the cheapest possible green coffee is always the right goal.
A higher coffee price can hurt a small roaster and still be necessary for producers. Both things can be true at once.
What a small roaster can actually control
I cannot control rainfall in Brazil, the New York futures market or U.S. trade policy. I can control a much smaller set of decisions inside Urban Calm.
- How much coffee we roast at a time, so we are not tying up cash in unnecessary finished inventory.
- How carefully we order packaging and other inputs, so a design decision does not create avoidable waste.
- How clearly we communicate price changes instead of hiding behind vague language.
- How much attention we keep on coffee quality, because paying more for green coffee only makes sense if the finished cup earns the customer’s next purchase.
- How we keep the producer story visible, so rising costs do not reduce coffee to a number on a spreadsheet.
Those are not glamorous strategies, but small businesses are built on decisions like these.
Why I am still optimistic
The economics of coffee are more intense than when Urban Calm began. I do not expect the market to go back to a simple version of the “good old days,” and I do not think climate pressure is going away.
What keeps me optimistic is that higher prices can also make people ask better questions. Where did this coffee come from? Who grew it? Was it roasted well? Is the company transparent about what is in the bag? Am I paying for actual quality or just a bigger marketing budget?
Those are good questions for a small specialty roaster.
I still get to build coffee around women-led farms in Huila, roast it in Calgary and turn a complicated global commodity into something personal enough to hold in one mug. Markets will move. Weather will test producers. Policies will change. My job is to make sure the choices we control stay consistent even when the numbers around them do not.
Sources and further reading
- FAO - Adverse climatic conditions drive coffee prices to highest level in years — 38.8% rise and weather/supply context.
- International Coffee Organization - Public Market Information — 2026 ICO Composite Indicator Price.
- World Coffee Research - CafeClima — Climate risk and adaptation.
- World Coffee Research - CafeClima launch and 2050 suitability context — Up-to-50% suitability risk and adaptation.
- Canada Border Services Agency - Customs Tariff 2026, Chapter 9 — Tariff item 0901.11.00 is free.
- Reuters - Coffee prices approach all-time high amid tariffs and Brazil weather (2025) — 2025 tariff shock.
- Reuters - Brazil instant coffee sector exempt from new U.S. tariffs (2026) — The tariff picture changed in 2026.
- Urban Calm Coffee - Women-led farms — ASPROTIMANA and Timaná sourcing relationship.
