2025 had no peer for those of us whose business is tied to full access to global coffee harvests. Gifted with historically high green coffee prices, the United States government compounded the impact by imposing 10-40% tariff surcharges on the vast majority of countries where coffee grows. For a thin margin retail and wholesale coffee company where green coffee purchasing, shipping and storage account for roughly 20% of total expenditures, a 10-40% tariff surcharge on a product which cannot be grown domestically in any significant volume is a head scratcher, to say the least.
Tasked with navigating this, we contracted lots of coffee pre-tariff imposition, taking long positions where possible in an attempt to weather and/or wait out the situation until wiser voices (or judges) prevailed. In some cases, we pivoted away from a core component when our stocks ran low (late 2024 Brazil crop on a 40% tariff). Our goal remains to pay high sustainable prices to our longstanding, hard-working and talented coffee producers while finding relative values in the higher volume community lots utilized in our blended coffees.
Looking for any silver lining here, we found that when even commodity quality coffees are at the top of what many can pay, great coffee lots can be seen as a relative value at a +$1-3 dollar per pound pricing differential. And anecdotally, producers who had seen many years of the highest premiums paid from specific sourcing groups (many of whom we have a long history with), producers often chose to stay with those steady, stable relationships over possible one-time windfalls at a time of historically high green coffee prices. Long and strong relationships and stability over short-term cash grab is a practice we endorse.
In house, with our staff and payroll at least nominally under our control, we tried our best to run lean and clean. That's nothing new, although it was certainly a through-line on our operational values in 2025 while striving to do amazing work on behalf of our cafe, online and wholesale customers who we allow us to do what we do.
2025 Payroll Data
Hours: 23,411 (includes 1,012 PTO & Sick Time)
Avg Hourly Wage: $24.47 untipped*
Avg Hourly Wage: $31.87 with tips*
Owner Salary: 72k, $34.62 Hourly Equivalency
38% of total earnings to payroll before taxes*
* On bar/front of house wages tipped. Back of house and management time untipped. Untipped jobs all north of $28 per hour from roasting production and delivery on up.
Big Picture Green Coffee Takeaways
Bluebeard paid an average of $5.01 on 55,373 pounds of coffee purchased in 2025, an increase of 27% in price per pound of green coffee paid in 2024.
For perspective, coffee's commodity price (C Market) began 2025 at $3.75 per lb (2024 started at $1.94 per pound) and zig zagged upwards to into the $4.20's in March and October before settling a bit to begin 2026 at $2.80.
The Commodity C Market price of coffee is considered to be an average pound of Arabica coffee in Brazil, the largest producer of coffee in the world, now followed closely by Vietnam. Bluebeard has always paid precipitously higher prices for access to great coffees in our goal of gaining steady access to the best beans, farmed and processed by folks who deserve to live and prosper for their ongoing efforts. The last few years have been eye openers for all of us trying to navigate a supercharged coffee buying landscape.
Bluebeard continues to feel proud of the coffees, growers, source partners and our little role in their continued sustainability and success.
Our listed price is the Ex-Warehouse (EXW) price, paid for from the point of entry warehouse in the US. Shipping and storage in and from mostly NY and the Bay Area are not included here. As EXW covers nearly the entirety of our contracts and purchases, we utilize it.
- by Kevin McGlocklin