Tariffs

So as of yesterday evening, tariffs have been removed from US imports of coffee, other than 15% on coffee imported from India. Particularly of importance is that the 50% tariff on Brazilian coffee is now 0%. That was the one that was messing up the whole market.

Does this mean prices will come down? Hopefully! Probably! 

-- It's a La Nina weather pattern, and that's good for higher yields of coffee in next year's harvests.

-- The elimination of tariffs will cut between 50 cents to $1.60 per pound from our future price, depending on where it was coming from and should also cause the baseline price to drop. 

-- The elimination of tariffs will give importers the confidence to start importing much more quantity, which should soon alleviate the artificial shortage of coffee currently in the US.

That's the good news. The bad news is that we have a 2-3 month supply of coffee in our warehouse that we paid record prices for, and US importers have a 2-3 month supply of coffee in their warehouses that they have to sell before they are going to offer cheaper deals on new arrivals. Furthermore, not a lot of coffee is on its way to the USA, and now it will be, but the journey takes 6-8 weeks.

So it will take time for the cheaper prices to trickle down to you, but I think as early as the end of January, we could be in a position to lower our coffee prices back to pre-tariff prices! 

My understanding is that tariffs have also been eliminated from all tea imports, and while those tariffs weren't as punishing and disruptive as the ones in coffee, that's great news for our tea customers as well.