Cool down with a -121°F cryogenic latte. Plus, why Royal Coffee is temporarily lowering prices at its cafe, and the Brazilian harvest may be down 15-20% because of weather fluctuations.
‘Some Green Coffee Importers Are Now Issuing Tariff Refunds’ – via Sprudge
In February, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled President Trump’s tariffs unconstitutional. But in the ten months it took for the tariffs to be struck down, Customs and Border Protection collected nearly $166 billion in revenue, including tariffs on items like coffee. In April, the department said it would begin refunding companies, and some green coffee importers have pledged to pass that money down to their customers.
Tariffs imposed in April 2025 on coffee and other goods imported into the U.S. were primarily paid at the point of entry by importers. With tariffs ranging from 10% to 50% on each shipment, many importers passed these costs on to their customers. In coffee, that meant higher costs were passed down from green coffee importers to roasters and then to cafes, which in turn upped the price of things like beans and drinks. Tariffs were one of the reasons retail coffee prices spiked last year.
With importers getting their tariff money back, Zac Cadwalader reports for Sprudge that several specialty green importers have said they will refund their customers or issue credits. Over the past three weeks, Royal Coffee, Atlas Coffee Importers, and Cafe Imports all announced they will pass on the refunds they received to customers.
Whether coffee drinkers will see a dime of refund money remains to be seen. Cadwalader calls figuring out exactly how to do that “a near impossible task.” If you’re a roaster who receives a few thousand dollars back, how do you decide who gets that money? If you’re a cafe, how many lattes do you need to give away?
Some coffee companies are giving it a try: Royal announced that it will temporarily reduce drink prices at its cafe, The Crown, in Oakland, California. The company’s director of education, Chris Kornman, detailed how the company calculated this discount. In April 2025, The Crown raised its prices to compensate for the tariffs, which Kornman estimates brought in $2,500. In an attempt to give customers their money back, the cafe will temporarily reduce its prices by 25 cents per drink for 60 days.
By explaining exactly how they’re doing it, Kornman wrote, Royal hopes to offer other cafes a model for how to calculate a potential drink rebate should they choose to refund their customers.
Read more on the tariff refunds here.
‘Brazil Coffee Faces El Niño Headwinds, but Crops More Resilient’ – via Reuters
We’re in the thick of harvest season in Brazil, arguably a harbinger moment in the industry. How the harvest goes can impact coffee prices globally, and this year’s could be a record. However, erratic weather and a looming El Niño risk putting a dampener on things.
Analysts predict that Brazil could see a bumper crop of between 66 and 73 million bags. But unexpected rainfall has hampered harvesting, Victoria Pacheco reports for Reuters, and industry stakeholders are worried about the impact of El Niño. A Pacific Ocean climate pattern that can cause drought, flooding, and erratic weather worldwide, forecasters believe this year’s El Niño will be particularly strong.
Celirio Inacio da Silva, executive director of the Brazilian Coffee Industry Association, told Pacheco that weather conditions could cause farmers to lose between 15% and 20% of their crops. “In the current scenario, that is very bad news,” he said. Experts say that extreme heat and irregular—but intense—rainfall, exacerbated by El Niño, have already impacted the harvest. Heavy rain in southeastern Brazil “delayed the harvest and caused a significant amount of coffee cherries to fall to the ground, hurting bean quality,” Pacheco writes.
Farmers are also concerned that volatile weather conditions could extend into 2027, possibly affecting next year’s production. However, many producers have been preparing for such eventualities, Silva said, by implementing irrigation systems to conserve water. “We’ve made significant advances and today we’re able to plant and harvest more efficiently.”
Read the full story on Brazil’s weather threat here.
‘Coffee at -85 °C in Japan, the Iced Latte Taking Yokohama by Storm: Is It Really Such an Extreme Drink?’ – via Comunicaffe
If you’ve ever had an iced latte on a hot day, you’ve probably been disappointed by how rapidly ice melts, diluting your drink. Some enterprising coffee shops have come up with a solution to keep drinks cold without ice watering things down: cryogenically freeze the glass.
A cafe in Yokohama, Japan, has gone viral for its ultracold, ice-free lattes that involve freezing glasses to -85°C (-121°F). When milk and espresso are poured into the glass, they cool right down. The frozen glass also semi-freezes the liquid, giving the drink a milkshake-like consistency. The cafe also serves a cryogenic Coca-Cola Americano, which honestly sounds delicious.
The Yokohama cafe isn’t the first to serve ultracold coffee. Coffee shops in Singapore and China were serving a similar drink in 2025, and in Thailand earlier this year.
In Australia, the drinks are called a Dirty -85°C, and have taken Melbourne by storm in recent months. A coffee shop called Regulars has had lines down the block, serving 600 glasses every day. Regulars co-owner Eddy Pan told Lauren Tran-Muchowski of Broadsheet that the ultracold latte acts as an entry point for newcomers while also intriguing more seasoned coffee drinkers. “It’s visual, fun, and delicious for someone just starting their coffee journey, but the technical precision behind it satisfies the experts,” he said.
Read more about cryogenic coffee here.
More News
‘Review: Coffee Sustainability Research is Growing but Fragmented’ via Daily Coffee News
‘This Costa Rica Coffee Just Sold for $200 a Pound’ via Tico Times
‘Ecuador’s Amazon Coffee Farmers Get Ahead of Europe’s Deforestation Rules’ via Mongabay
‘BC Partners, CVC Set Sights on Italian Coffee Firm Segafredo Zanetti As Fund Owner Weighs Sale, Sources Say’ via Reuters
‘Egypt’s Coffee Crisis – up to 80% of Market Flooded With Fake Blends’ via Egypt Independent
The Week in Coffee Unionizing
On June 22, workers at Baby’s On Fire in Baltimore sent a letter to the cafe’s owners requesting voluntary recognition of their union. “We are organizing for respect, equity, transparency, and worker power in the decisions that affect our labor and our working conditions,” the workers wrote on Instagram.
But weeks later, the company’s owners announced that, after ten years, the cafe would close. “Despite our best efforts for the last several years, Baby’s on Fire has faced significant losses in revenue due to the economic downturn, which has left us with no choice but to permanently close the business,” they wrote on the company’s Instagram on July 10.
Owners David and Shirlé Koslowski live in Portugal, according to the union, and hadn’t responded to their request for voluntary recognition before announcing the closure. In a statement to the Baltimore Banner, Jason Chorpenning, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 27, called the move “union-busting 101.” Kate Khatib from the Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy said they had reached out to the Koslowskis about the potential for the cafe to transition to a worker-owned model but had not heard back.
Meanwhile, we managed to miss the news that workers at Commonplace Coffee in Pittsburgh voted to form a union last month. The 46 workers across six cafes and a roastery saw their request for voluntary recognition accepted by Commonplace’s co-founder, TJ Fairchild. “Our team has spoken, and we intend to carry that same spirit into this next chapter as we begin the process of bargaining together toward our first contract,” Fairchild wrote on Instagram.
Further afield, Starbucks workers in South Korea have formed the first union amongst Starbucks locations in the country. The Korean Chemical, Textile & Food Workers’ Union announced its formation on July 16. The union pointed to issues similar to those faced by Starbucks workers in the U.S., including understaffing, overwork, and low wages.
Retail conglomerate Shinsegae Group operates Starbucks Korea and has been dealing with the fallout of its controversial “Tank Day” promotional campaign. The campaign coincided with the anniversary of a brutal military crackdown on pro-democracy protestors. Starbucks Korea said it would “communicate with the labor union in accordance with relevant laws.”
Beyond the Headlines
‘Why the Next Decade Is Decisive for Coffee’s Future’ by Meg Kennedy
‘How Specialty Coffee Brands Are Keeping Up With Gen Z Consumers’ by Chloé Skye Weiser
