Coffee Prices Still Increasing -- Brew Premium Gourmet Coffee

Allentown, NJ (PRWEB) November 17, 2010

Gourmet Coffee drinkers have become accustomed to paying $2 or more per cup for fresh brewed coffees at Premium coffee houses and those prices could increase to as much as $4 per cup soon due to possible increases in green coffee prices.

Prices of premium gourmet beans range between $12 and $18 per pound, making a cup of home-brewed gourmet coffee, made fresh to your liking, cost only between .12 cents and .25 cents per cup! One of the rarest and most expensive coffees sold, known as Kopi Luwak, is $195 per pound, is still less than $2.00 per cup when brewed at home!

Consumers are being urged to brew their own gourmet coffee at home and carry their morning cup of java in reusable travel mugs. Gourmet coffee consumers rarely consider the cost of their daily coffee in terms of how much it would cost to brew at home with prices of a pound of gourmet coffee beans versus a three cup a day coffee drinking habit at premium coffee house prices.

Brewing coffee at home and carrying coffee in washable mugs can make consumers more environmentally responsible. Online coffee retailer Tastes of the World suggests brewing fresh made gourmet coffee at home before the morning commute, then using thermal mugs and thermoses to carry the daily hot morning coffee to work.

Poor weather led to lower production and reduced quality in South America (Brazil and Columbia) and in Vietnam during the growing season and resulted in lower supplies of green coffee, mostly of Robusta beans, used by major manufacturers.

Representative Charles Schumer sent a message to major coffee growers from Brazil and Vietnam at the International Coffee Organization meeting a month ago , warning them not to stockpile coffee. Some believe this could occur because bad weather resulted in poor crops for some major coffee growing regions. Schumer, in an interview, was quoted saying "If it was just weather, there's not much you can do, but it's beyond that ... It's people trying to manipulate the market. We want to stop that."

Rising prices for green coffee beans on the open market has led to speculation and is resulting in stockpiling concerns by regulators. This past weekend Starbucks president Howard Schultz claimed that the current record market price for green coffee beans of over two dollars a pound was unsustainable and blamed speculation for the increase in prices. That is the highest price since August 1997.

Major coffee retailers who have announced price increases include Peet's, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Maxwell House, and Folgers.

(Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/11/17/prweb4794504.DTL)