Trump's tariffs are raising Philly coffee prices
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ReAnimator Coffee shop on West Master Street in Philly. Photo: Courtesy of Mark Capriotti and Mark Corpus
Wake up and smell the price increase, Philly. Those morning drip coffees and lattes are going to cost more.
Why it matters: Local coffee roasters are bracing for more pain behind every pour after the Trump administration last week imposed a baseline 10% tariff on U.S. imports.
The latest: President Trump also imposed higher reciprocal tariffs on around 60 nations starting Wednesday, and then on Wednesday he paused them for 90 days — except on China.
- He raised tariffs on China to 125%, blasting the country for retaliating to his initial levies, Axios' Ben Berkowitz reports.
State of play: ReAnimator Coffee co-owners Mark Capriotti and Mark Corpus tell Axios that the Philly chain sources much of its beans, packaging and equipment from overseas, including from China and Mexico.
- The co-owners have to increase prices to cover the added costs, but they plan to make changes slowly so loyal customers aren't hit with sticker shock all at once.
- "You never want to do it; you do it because you have to," Capriotti says. "This is an unprecedented situation."
By the numbers: ReAnimator Coffee gets about 60% of its coffee beans from South America, 25% from Central America and 15% from Africa, Capriotti tells Axios.
- The new tariffs are a double whammy because coffee makers were already dealing with higher wholesale prices for arabica beans — the most popular type — because of extreme weather that has impacted the world's top producers.
Zoom in: Since ReAnimator's coffee bean packaging is sourced from China, the business is bracing to shell out double what it normally pays.
- The cost of cups, straws and sleeves — sourced in part from China and Mexico — will also increase, as will replacement parts for brewing equipment at ReAnimator Coffee's five locations.
- Some suppliers will bake levies into shipping costs, Capriotti says.
Ultimately, the price of a single cup of coffee could rise 25 to 50 cents, and a bag of ReAnimator Coffee's cheapest blend could jump about $2 to $4, the co-owners tell Axios.
Zoom out: Some coffee shops in the U.S. are kicking around the idea of including a tariff tax on customers' receipts so they know the reason for the increase.
The intrigue: This comes as some Pennsylvania swing voters in our latest Engagious/Sago focus groups said they do not support tariffs on coffee and bananas — items not easily grown in the U.S.
- "We need to have it, and it's a basic thing, so you shouldn't impose [a tariff] on that," Fahmida S., a 31-year-old voter from Philadelphia, said during an online panel on Tuesday.
- While the focus group — made up of 13 Pennsylvania voters who backed former President Biden in 2020 but switched to Trump last November — is not a statistically significant sample, the responses show how some voters are thinking and talking about current events.
The bottom line: Lauren Swartz, president of the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, tells Axios the city's coffee makers and drinkers alike have more to think about now.
- "What is your corner coffee shop to do?" she says. "American spending habits, and comfort with doing something like buying a cup of coffee every day, are probably something we're all talking about at our kitchen tables."