Regular Weekly Retail Hours:

Wednesdays 9:00 - 4:00
Saturdays 9:00 - 4:00

*other days possible by appointment,
just shoot us a text or e-mail to arrange!

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July 5th, 2025: UPDATES

UPCOMING CLOSURE: We may only be open to the public two days per week, but we’re working behind the scenes each Mon - Sat roasting/sorting/packaging/delivering.

That said, we’re taking a super rare day off from work - we’ll be closed on Wednesday, July 30th 2025 so we can have a brief escape from CT. You can always stock up ahead of time, or visit one of the other local CT businesses that we work with to grab some beans - just click the “Find Us” tab under “Links” above to view the list of vendors!

COLD BREW CANS: We are working hard to get our cold brew cans done and in the shop before we’re too deep into summer! We’re working with a local CT brewery and hoping to have some updates soon - we’ve been anxiously awaiting the arrival of a fresh shipment of beans that just landed this past week at the dock in NJ. Now, we’ve got to get them up here to CT, roast close to 250 lbs., and get it brewed to our specs. Stay tuned!!!

TARIFFS: We’re having a hard time feeling patriotic today. This 4th of July, we’re here to remind you about those lovely TARIFFS. We’ve had a few customers recently come in who, to our surprise, didn’t know that coffee is still subject to this administration’s baseline 10% tariffs. In case you also forgot, the baseline tariffs are still imposed on just about every country on the planet, and on COFFEE, which we can’t produce on a commercial level domestically.

Not only that, but the tariff “pause” (which resulted in baseline 10% tariffs) will expire in 5 days, on July 9th. While many of the South/Central American and African countries will remain at 10% tariff rates after July 9th, others like Indonesia will rise to 32%, Thailand up to 36%, Vietnam up to 46%.

A 32% tariff on Indonesian coffee would have a DETRIMENTAL impact on our business. We use Sumatran beans as single-origin, as well as in our Espresso and Dark Roast Blends. We go through A LOT of Sumatran beans each year.

We just brought in our first shipment of direct-trade Thai coffee this year. To be honest, a 36% tariff would likely turn this new venture into a one-time deal. HUGE bummer.

Finally, Vietnam. The “Liberation Day” announcement threatened a 46% tariff after July 9th. We don’t buy any Vietnamese coffee beans, so who cares, right? Wrong! Vietnam is the world’s 2nd largest producer of coffee. Even if you’ve never had coffee from there, it is used so widely that a price increase that drastic would lead to big coffee chain buyers buying from other countries - which in turn, would lead to higher prices elsewhere when the demand shifts to other sources.

Perhaps the worst part of all of this is the anxiety of not knowing what’s next. Not being able to plan on anything being remotely stable for the foreseeable future. Will the tariffs go away? Will they be extended at the 10% rate? Will they skyrocket on a whim? Why is the coffee industry part of a “National Emergency” act, which is supposed to to “Increase our Competitive Edge, Protect our Sovereignty, and Strengthen our National and Economic Security?”

As a small business, WE are being taxed by the U.S. government. Sumatra, Ethiopia, and Colombia aren’t paying tariffs to the U.S., WE are. This is trickle down economics, but the reality-based version where the importer (most of our importers are U.S. owned companies, by the way) pays the tax to the government, adds the tariffs onto our costs, and then we either buy the beans, source elsewhere, raise our prices to compensate, or close up shop. (we’re not closing up shop!)

We’re having a hard time feeling patriotic today.

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PAST NEWS:
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BIG Y: We have officially made the call to pull out of Big Y stores. We have been working with Big Y for over two years now, and had our beans in four of their local stores. This decision didn’t come lightly, and it also has nothing to do with Big Y. They have been extremely supportive in giving us (and many other) local New England businesses a chance to showcase our products to a much larger audience.

The reality is that wholesale is becoming less and less appealing as coffee prices skyrocketed over the past 6 or 7 months, and the baseline 10% tariffs put in place on every single coffee-growing country other than Mexico. We already raised our wholesale prices, but we don’t want to keep playing that game of catch-up due to the whiplash decisions that are being made by this administration. We’re using this opportunity to focus on keeping our coffee quality great, rather than try churning out mass volume just to keep up financially. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause our customers, but we hope that you’ll continue to support us either online, in our shop, or at one of our other stockists.
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