Why Costco's Coffee Will Keep Going Up In Price

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If you're new to Costco, you may go down the coffee aisle and find a three pound tin of coffee for $23.99 and think to yourself, "That's a pretty solid deal." It amounts to only $8 per pound of coffee. However, if you've been buying coffee from Costco for the last few years, you know how good it used to be. On a Reddit post earlier this year, a user lamented at the rising cost of Kirkland brand coffee. Pre-pandemic, the user reported the same tin was only $9.99, or only $3.33 a pound! The sad fact is that $23.99 is most likely the cheapest it will be for a while, and it's not just Costco.

Tariffs are only a part of the equation. Coffee prices have leaped up 20.9% in the past year, and the price increase started before the tariffs even took place. Green coffee beans can be stored for up to a year before going to market, so we have yet to see the major effects from these extra charges. Expect a big hit to your coffee budget, as it's a broad 10% tax on goods from coffee producing countries — and a 50% tax on goods from Brazil, which supplies 30% of our coffee. Before tariffs came, climate change — which has caused droughts in Vietnam and Brazil — heavily impacted the top two producers of coffee. This continues to lessen the world's supply of coffee, kicking the price up.

The reality is both coffee and tea are going up in price, so the best ways to save money are to make it at home, limit waste, and drink less. While there are some coffee companies growing beans in America, it's not yet a major source of coffee. Higher wages, more expensive land, and a climate less supportive to most coffees mean domestic coffee growth isn't an answer to getting around the tariff costs.

Making coffee at home will always be cheaper than getting it from a coffee shop. You can find cheap pour-over devices for home use that will help you limit a daily Starbucks indulgence. Making drip coffee like pour-over is also more efficient than immersion like a French press. Drip coffee generally uses 15% less beans to make an equally strong cup of coffee. That's not much, but over time, it adds up.

Another option is to buy whole bean coffee and grind it yourself at home. While a three-pound bag of Colombian whole bean coffee from Costco is only marginally less than the pre-ground tin at $7.50 a pound, if stored properly, it will stay fresher for longer — this means less coffee is thrown out because it's gone stale. Most coffee is fine to store in a dark, cool place in the bag it came in. However, extra large bags will allow more oxidation to occur, so an airtight canister like this Fellow Atmos is a great way to keep your supply fresh.