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One reason President Trump gives for his tariffs on foreign products is that he wants to bring production to the United States, which is not going to happen for coffee. The U.S. is the world's largest coffee consumer, but we only grow about 1% of the coffee we drink in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. This is ironic. Coffee is the American drink. After the Boston Tea Party in 1773, people famously switched from tea to coffee. Now official policy sees coffee otherwise. Clearly, the patriotic solution is to drink something made in America, like bourbon, but people are likely to keep drinking some coffee. So reporter Murray Carpenter spoke with a coffee roaster who's trying to figure things out.
MURRAY CARPENTER: The burlap bags stacked in a roasting building in Deer Isle, Maine, tell tales of international commerce.
MELISSA RAFTERY: We are looking, I would say, right now, roughly, at about 11 different areas in the world where we're currently sourcing and roasting coffee.
CARPENTER: Melissa Raftery, co-owner of 44 North Coffee, is standing among giant bags of unroasted coffee, each weighing 60 or 70 kilos.
RAFTERY: Our largest being Sumatra, which is this first bag here. We commit to about, annually, a hundred and five bags of Sumatra.
CARPENTER: Raftery and a partner started this business 15 years ago, and it's grown steadily to include two cafes, online retail sales, and more than 70 wholesale accounts with businesses across Maine. They now roast more than 80,000 pounds of coffee annually. But this winter, a combination of climate-change-induced stresses and growing global demand pushed commodity prices for coffee to record highs. And in early April, Raftery sent a new price list to her wholesale customers, with higher prices reflecting those increased costs.
RAFTERY: Five hours later, the tariffs were put into effect.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We will supercharge our domestic industrial base. We will pry open foreign markets and break down foreign trade barriers. And ultimately, more production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers.
CARPENTER: That's President Trump announcing the tariffs on April 2. Among them, 46% for Vietnam, which ranks second only to Brazil in coffee production, and 32% for Indonesia, including that Sumatran coffee. The president soon paused the country-specific tariffs and replaced them with 10% tariffs on most imports. But the coffee industry is rattled. The National Coffee Association, representing popular brands like Folgers, has formally requested that coffee be exempted from new tariffs. And the Specialty Coffee Association says the tariffs are amplifying volatility in the market. Still, some Maine coffee drinkers say they'll stick with their habit, even if prices go way up.
MATT WARD: (Laughter) I guess way up's relative. But, yeah, it would have to go way up. I probably would find other ways to go about it.
PETER CUMMINGS: I'm still going to drink it. I'm going to drink coffee before I buy eggs.
CARPENTER: That's Pastor Matt Ward and Dr. Peter Cummings (ph), who say they've not yet noticed a dramatic increase in coffee prices.
(SOUNDBITE OF COFFEE BEANS POURING)
CARPENTER: Melissa Raftery says she was blown away to see the high tariffs that were proposed for Indonesian coffees before President Trump paused them. But even if the current 10% tariffs persist, she says they'll have a strong impact on her business.
RAFTERY: I'm just sitting with it, to be really honest. I'm going to watch and study what other people do. But right now I'm trying not to lose sleep.
CARPENTER: Raftery thinks roasters and coffee drinkers will start seeing the costs of the tariffs next month.
For NPR News, I'm Murray Carpenter in Deer Isle, Maine.
(SOUNDBITE OF SKINSHAPE'S "HIGH TIDE STORM RISING") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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