One year on and the price of green coffee has still not stabilised. In all the craziness happening with green coffee price hikes and then drops, the real rub for any consumer is in the price we pay for our daily cup of coffee. Speculation ran wild at the beginning of 2025 on what we will be paying for coffee in the coming months and years. This is our first comparison from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026.
Initial fears were that the price per cup was going to increase drastically, but we can see from the data below that cafes (and every layer of the supply chain, roasters, green importers) have largely absorbed any increases, seeing only nominal increases across the board.
We asked Andrew Boltman of Zuka Green Coffee for his educated opinion on what's happening with the price of coffee right now and what it could mean for consumers.
"At the beginning of last year the New York Exchange traded Coffee Futures price broke through the all time high set in 1977. It didn't just touch on this price point, but surged up another 20% above this price, before finally slowing down. For green coffee traders this was very bad news, as we are the first part of the local supply chain, and being a volume business with low margins, we inevitability don't have a choice but to pass on any increases (and eventually decreases!). That being said the past few years the consumer has also been in an increasingly tough spot financially, due to local economic factors. This has meant that they were not in a mood for huge increases in what is now part of their sometimes even daily routine, the flat white. I have been so captured by this conundrum, that last year I started running a 'flat white calculator'. Being a roaster and cafe manager in my previous life, I have a general understanding of desired margins in those spaces. My take on it is that the roasters are the ones being squeezed, and taking the knock on margins. Number one; because it's a highly competitive space and cafes can many times pick and choose, but number two; if roasters have been around for a while they know 'what goes up must surely come down', and they have to trust and hope that green coffee prices will improve again. At the time of this writing green coffee pricing is improving in the next few months! This should bring much relief to roasts countrywide!'
So there was a bit of good news when this quote was published at the beginning of February 2026, but since then more instability has followed with the potential full scale war where much of the world's oil supply comes from. We will be interested to see what the next couple of months holds for coffee prices and humanity in general terms.
Coffee Futures Trading Numbers at 5 March 2026. 10 year snapshot below.
Please comment below or fill out the form with the amount you pay for your daily cappuccino (single shot) or Flat white (double shot standard) and the name and province of your local, let's see what a cup of coffee costs near you! We'd love to expand this list to include outlying areas and make it more comprehensive as the years go on.
It is really interesting to see prices of different cafes alongside one another.
Things to note:
These prices were sourced through various methods (visiting stores, online research, asking brands) and are subject to change/might be different in stores and we may have got it wrong, but we are endeavouring to be completely accurate so please let us know if you pick up an error. We kicked things off with the franchises as they have the biggest footprint and will add as we receive data and visit cafes ourselves.
This will updated end of March and we will be able to see if the inflation has hit then.
Definitions: Americano, otherwise known as 'a coffee' by customers, espresso shot over water, dash of milk optional. Single Shot Cappuccino, is a short drink ie in a cup between 160-220ml, Flat White is a double shot in a similar size cup. Reasons for this? Short answer is that we're not gauging the price of milk, but milky beverages are the most popular cafe orders.
All prices are in ZAR
*indicates a cafe that uses 80+ coffees (specialty) in their everyday coffee offering.
