Our Love Affair with Coffee Suddenly Got Expensive in 2021

A 10-year look at coffee prices reveals eye-watering increases.

The morning cuppa. A brew. A warm cup of Joe. Bean juice. We love our coffee in the morning. I, for one, find it hard to have coherent conversation before 10am without a cup of the good stuff in my hand.

A lot of us seem to feel this way. Americans spend circa $110 Billion (with a B!) on coffee each year. The average coffee drinker drops around $20-25 a week on this delicious habit.

This beefy item on the American consumer spending docket sent me digging into coffee price changes and inflation over the last 10 years. Because that’s what you do when you love something so.

In the chart below, you can the change in price of all household items (purple) rising over the years. Prices on all items climbed a whopping 39%. Dang.

Coffee chose a different path. From 2015 to 2021, coffee got quietly cheaper. Declining just over 6% in that timeframe. Yummy.

Then, like the seductive sociopath that it is, coffee prices swung up. And Coffee swung hard. Between 2021 and the end of 2025, coffee prices rose a whopping 49%. Forty-nine! What in the royal fudge, coffee.

Coffee prices teased by hovering in places from 2022 to 2024. Before sprinting upward just as we all got comfortable with things.

I say again, what the hell coffee?!

So here we are. 2025. We’re living in a time where those 2015 coffee prices feel like a dream. And today’s prices? They’re not fun. Not fun at all.