For consumers in Vietnam and Indonesia, the surge in prices comes at a time when love for the beverage was blossoming. Coffee shops thrived recently as increases in disposable income across Southeast Asia gave the market a boost, even spurring the region to import more coffee in the past year.

Now, domestic roasters in Indonesia are shifting to use lower grade beans to control costs, said Moelyono Soesilo, head of downstream coffee industry at the Association of Indonesian Coffee Exporters and Industries. Even ingredients like roasted corn, rice and ground nuts are added by roasters to replace coffee beans in products targeted to low-end small coffee shops.

“With current higher technology machines, they can still maintain good quality products and reduce losses of beans,” Soesilo said.

High coffee prices are also making some buyers in Vietnam hesitant to place large orders, said Trinh Duc Minh, chairman of the Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Association in the central highland province of Dak Lak, the country’s largest coffee-growing area. 

And then, there’s China. A major buyer of many agriculture commodities, the nation is still a coffee newbie. Tea remains the most popular beverage. And yet coffee-drinking in Chinese urban areas became notable, with the US Department of Agriculture recently estimating consumption more than doubled in the past decade. 

But in 2024, shipments from Brazil to China slowed, according to Cecafé, an exporters group in the South American nation. That came after a boom in 2023. 

Chinese buyers “were very present at a time when coffee was competitive in terms of cost for the consumer,” Cecafé President Márcio Ferreira told reporters this month, while adding that he’s still keeping some optimism for future purchases.

Reports of reduced activity at Chinese coffee shops support the argument of slower consumption growth at the moment, said Michael Von Luehrte, a consultant and coffee-market veteran. 

China’s “culture of coffee consumption is just at the beginning,” Von Luehrte said. “But, with the weakness in the economy we’ve seen over the past months, I do wonder if consumers will really spend more on coffee now and if the growth momentum continues.”