Starbucks Raises Coffee Prices Again?! Starbucks Coffee Beverages and Coffee Beans Have All Increased in Price!

On February 22, Starbucks Japan announced that, thanks to soaring prices for coffee beans and other raw materials (logistics costs included), it would raise prices on coffee beans and beverages starting April 13. Coffee bean prices will climb by roughly 90 to 300 yen, and beverage prices by about 10 to 55 yen — while plant-based milk options such as the soy, almond, and oat milk lattes will actually drop by more than 10 yen.

This is Starbucks Japan's first beverage price increase in 3 years (since February 2019) and its first coffee bean adjustment in 16 years (since February 2006).

Since COVID-19 arrived, costs of every kind have climbed, and under inflation most people had long braced for news of coffee price hikes. When it finally came, it still stung. Milk tea keeps getting easier to afford; coffee, apparently, offers no such freedom.

Coffee bean futures rose sharply over the past year. Recently, the Russia-Ukraine conflict may have dampened market consumption, nudging futures back down somewhat. But with demand from the major coffee-consuming countries still climbing and maritime shipping disrupted, the bean shortage keeps deepening. Coffee prices track global supply closely, and the relationship shapes the medium-to-long-term trend.

As early as February, Coffee Workshop reported that Starbucks' CEO had told a meeting that product prices would rise to cushion the erosion of profits from costs and inflation.

Then Starbucks Korea raised its iced Americano price — and as soon as the news broke, Korea's major coffee chains followed suit, effectively ending Koreans' "Americano freedom."

Soon after, Starbucks China quietly raised prices too. Combined with the negative publicity it was facing there at the time, the "premium" image Starbucks had spent years cultivating took a real hit.

Now Japan's increase will likely dent market share as well. By contrast, Doutor Coffee — Japan's homegrown national chain — offers more competitive pricing and enjoys higher approval ratings.

Starbucks entered Japan in 1996, its first international market outside North America — more than 25 years ago. In a June 2020 article about Japan's first sign-language store, Starbucks noted that Japan was then its fourth-largest market worldwide, with over 1,550 stores, 42,000 partners, and a presence across all 47 prefectures.

The coffee market is booming, and new brands keep emerging — a scene of "a hundred schools of thought contending," with more and more of them undercutting Starbucks on value. With prices now rising, which way will the mermaid sail?

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Every price hike is a good excuse to brew at home — a bag of quality beans makes dozens of cafe-worthy cups for the price of a couple of lattes. For milk coffee drinkers, FrontStreet Coffee's Classic Blend delivers a mellow, rounded body with thick, velvety crema thanks to its traditional Mandheling-Brazil recipe, and the FrontStreet Premium Blend — washed Colombian paired with pulped-natural Brazilian — layers nut, dark chocolate, and caramel through Americanos, lattes, and flat whites alike, with crema that rivals cafe output.

If you prefer your coffee black and aromatic, the FrontStreet Brazil Queen Estate Yellow Bourbon (natural process, 1400-1950m in Mogiana) offers dark chocolate, cream, peanut, and sugarcane sweetness with a silky body, while the FrontStreet Washed Guodingding Cooperative from Yirgacheffe brings jasmine florals and bright lemon-citrus acidity — affordable, versatile, and immune to anyone's price increases.