Posted on 04/12/2025 8:46:56 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
TJ Semanchin is the co-owner of Wonderstate Coffee, a Wisconsin-based coffee roaster.
Donald Trump's 10% blanket tariffs mean Semanchin's company will have to make some hard decisions.
Wonderstate typically imports 40,000 pounds of coffee in one transaction.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with 51-year-old TJ Semanchin, the co-owner of Wonderstate Coffee. Business Insider has confirmed Semanchin's identity and role at the company. The piece has been edited for length and clarity.
I've been in the coffee business for the last 25 years. Before that, I was living in Latin America studying issues around sustainable development in coffee lands.
After moving to a small rural town in Wisconsin in 2005, my wife and I started what was Kickapoo Coffee at the time — we've since rebranded — with our business partner, Caleb Nichols. We're a small company. We employ 85 people here in Wisconsin.
Today, Donald Trump's tariffs are 10% across the board, and we're in a business climate where there's so much uncertainty. You can't produce coffee in the United States. There's no replacement.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
"You can't produce coffee in the United States. There's no replacement."
So should we put have tariffs on products that can't be produced in the USA? I am thinking no, unless the supplier's country has predatory tariffs on us.
As we say here on FR, never accept the enemy's premise: "Coffee is commercially grown in two states in the US: Hawaii and California. Puerto Rico, which is a US territory, also has a thriving coffee industry. Experimental coffee growing projects are also occurring in Georgia and Santa Barbara, California." https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/which-states-grow-coffee.html Thought I remembered Hawaii coffee from Dirty Jobs.
Kona coffee runs about $40 a pound.
It’s excellent, but very pricey.
Jamaican Blue Mountain is also outstanding.
L
Get out the pearls. If his prices have to go up a bit that is the way it has to be. The importer, the retailer & the customer will share the hit. These death and gloom pieces are psych ops.
“So should we put have tariffs on products that can’t be produced in the USA?”
just raw materials should get tariff exemption
the beans might come in tariff free
ground coffee would not
Well, if your business model depends on unfair Tariffs, your business model is incorrect!
Now you have to adapt!
Adapt or die!
If you’re correct, you deserve a lot of credit. If prices spike, we should get a mea culpa.
Many things went up 30% to 100% or more under Biden.
I didn’t hear US companies attacking Biden incessantly.
When the PPACA was passed and personal health insurance premiums for millions went up by thousands of dollars annually per person, did the media incessantly bemoan it?
Unfortunately even raw materials can get “dumped” on America at prices below what America can make it. Steel being the prime example. China has the government subsidize steel making so they can sell it at a loss to destroy competitors. That’s why US steel making companies are almost bankrupt.
So even raw materials can sometimes need tariffs.
Good point. Coffee went up about 40% under Biden and there were no tariffs involved. Meanwhile inflation is reversing under Trump.
The base line starting point, tariifs were supposed to fund the government.
My Google Chromebook has been sidelined by software changes.
Its physical hardware is still fine.
Why isn’t the media bemoaning software forced obsolescence?
90,000 American factories closed and 5 million Americans lost their jobs when Clinton and Bush and Wall Street told us how much better off we’d be having junky Chinese stuff to buy
US coffee roasters will not face a crisis - because every single participant will face the same same situation and same tax. No one supplier or roaster will have an advantage over any other.
Perhaps they may lose the marginal customer who will think “my morning cup of coffee I make at home now costs me $0.85 instead of $0.75, I will switch to something else.”
But tea will face the exact same thing also....
but otherwise, the whole industry, from the farmers in Columbia to Starbucks, will simply do some combination of absorbing the cost, or passing it on.
Jamaica Blue coffee is also crazy expensive- in Jamaica...i’ve been there a few times in recent years on cruises and though of bringing some home yet its so damn expensive i said the heck with it- i’ll stick with chock full of nuts.
Any coffee tariff will be negotiated with the individual country. The 10 % tariff may be short term.
Higher paying jobs in manufacturing will easily afford slightly higher coffee prices.
Coffee is a staple in the American economy, but coffee-shop coffee items are a luxury, albeit one that is bought by a fair number of Americans. Luxuries, especially imported luxuries, should expect to be impacted by tariffs.
(And I’m not immune: as a “chajin” I’ve been drinking matcha for four decades, since long before it became cool. I fully expect to have to pony up more yen for the green stuff.)
I don’t worry about businesses that live off imports at all. Like the previous poster, PR, Hawaii grows coffee beans! Hear that, Duncan Donuts?
Do you buy whole, unroasted beans or pre-bagged?
I just checked with my favorite source, “CO=PILOT,” which tells me Duncan gets its beans from Central and South America. They use Arabica Beans grown in Brazil, Colombia, and Guatemala. “Rainforest Alliance certified”...
Well, guess what I found? They can be grown in PR in Yauco, Adjuntas, and Lares. Areas like the song goes, “DON’T CRY FOR ME, BABY” buy American grown......
EVEN IF it costs 10% more at the wholesale level, a one-time 10% or so adjustment as our nation’s trade gets an important overhaul is something many buyers will support.
It’s not like the cost of goods sold with untariffed sourcing hasn’t inflated over the past several decades. Consumers have paid the higher prices. The lines at Starbucks are unreal. Coffee is easy to obtain and brew. Fancy-schmancy frothy coffee drinks are now a common luxury.
Innovation and incentive will probably bring us a lot more American coffee, at lower locally grown coffee prices.
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