Beans and Burnout: Surviving 2025 and Building a Better 2026 for Coffee

2025: The Year Coffee Tried to Bankrupt Us

Coffee in 2025 felt less like a beverage and more like a financial experiment. Somewhere between the farm and the cup, everyone seemed to agree that things should cost more, and then quietly turned to the roasters and said, “You’ll sort that, right?”

Behind the scenes, green coffee prices in many origins nudged steadily upwards, thanks to a mix of climate issues, labour costs, and logistics that increasingly resemble a game designed by someone who hates fun. Shipping and energy weren’t exactly doing their bit to help. Roasters across the board saw their cost per kilo rise, sometimes dramatically, and many either passed it straight on in higher retail prices or quietly shrank bags to keep shelf numbers looking friendly.

Jae’s Roastory took the other route: absorb the costs first, talk about it later. On a spreadsheet, that decision looks a bit like using one of my 1970s Datsuns as a daily driver... Romantic in theory, but slightly terrifying when the bills arrive. Holding retail prices steady kept things more approachable for customers who were already dealing with their own rising costs, but every kilo sold was working harder than ever to justify its existence.

Going from 2024 where we were making around £1.50 gross margin per KG sold down to now about 92 pence at the end of 2025. Thats a 50%+ drop... You know it’s been that kind of year when “margin” stops being a healthy number and starts feeling more like a rumour.

International Shipping: The Boss Fight Nobody Asked For

If domestic coffee is a reasonably straightforward platformer (order, roast, ship, all within familiar rules) international shipping for coffee is a boss fight with three phases and no tutorial.

Different countries treat roasted coffee in different ways. Some welcome it as an innocent agricultural product; others see it as a bureaucratic opportunity and demand forms, declarations, and rules that appear to have been invented by someone with a grudge against flavour. A third type treat roasted coffee like it’s contraband; they simply decide that importing anything is a class A drug and must be priced/assessed/banned accordingly. International customers still exist, still want good coffee, and still deserve it; its just the challenge of how to get it to them...

Add on carriers who happily charge a small fortune to lob a box vaguely in the direction of a customer, and suddenly that innocent overseas order starts to look like a side quest in a bad RPG.

For Jae’s Roastory, international shipping in 2025 became a careful balancing act between “we want to send you good coffee wherever you are” and “we would also like to remain solvent and not spend three days filling in customs forms because you live somewhere that thinks coffee is a controlled substance”. In practice, that meant being selective about where to ship, how often, and by which method. Great for sanity and survival, less great for the lovely humans in far-flung places who just want their Sci-Fi Blend in a timely fashion.

Wholesale: When Costs Rise and Everyone Pretends They Haven’t

Wholesale coffee (selling to cafés, offices, and other businesses) used to be the calm, dependable older sibling of retail: volumes higher, forecasting easier, less emotional drama. In 2025, that started to wobble.

As wholesale costs climbed (green coffee, labour, energy, equipment servicing), many cafés and businesses found their own margins squeezed hard. Modern coffee drinkers still expect speciality quality, latte art, and nice cups, but they don't want to pay the true cost of it. That leaves roasters in the awkward position of trying to keep wholesale prices reasonable while also facing a cost base that has clearly not read the memo about staying flat.

We found ourselves in that classic small business dilemma: keep wholesale pricing as friendly as possible to support partners and help them keep great coffee, or raise prices to protect the company and risk becoming “too expensive” in a market that’s already feeling nervous. Spoiler: 2025 erred on the side of keeping things as accessible as possible and quietly absorbing far more pain than is healthy. 2026 is going to have to be the year the conversation about reality has to happen; or we will have to close our doors.

Think of it like a that old project car you keep feeding parts to without telling anyone the true total. Eventually, someone looks at the stack of invoices and realises this isn’t a hobby, it’s a lifestyle hazard swimming in asbestos.

That being said, for all the spreadsheets and shipping dramas, it's not been a grim place. Far from it. 2025 was also the year some very good coffee found its people.

Sci-Fi vs Fiction: The Beans That Tell a Story

The headline shift was simple but telling: Sci-Fi Blend overtook Fiction Blend as the top-selling coffee. On the surface, it’s just a reorder report. Underneath, it says something about what people wanted in their cup.

Fiction had long been the steady, dependable choice; the coffee equivalent of a well-loved daily driver. It does the job, does it well, and never leaves you stranded. Sci-Fi, on the other hand, leans into a slightly more adventurous profile: still approachable, still drinkable every day, but with a bit more personality. It’s the “what if mornings tasted like something new?” option.

The fact that customers gravitated towards Sci-Fi in bigger numbers suggests that, even in a year where everything cost more and everyone felt a bit battered, there was still appetite for "coffee that feels special", not just “coffee that exists”. That’s encouraging. It means the work of sourcing better coffees, tweaking profiles, and obsessing over roast curves isn’t just an internal ADHD fuelled madness... it actually matters.

From a narrative point of view, Sci-Fi winning over Fiction also fits the year: when reality looks like it’s been written by a tired committee, reaching for something that nods to the future makes a certain amount of sense.

True Crime: Decaf That Doesn’t Taste Like Regret

Then there’s the True Crime Blend, the decaf blend that turned up like the genre it’s named after; darkly compelling, oddly addictive, and much better than you might want to admit...

Decaf has, historically, been treated by much of the industry as the reluctant afterthought. It’s what you roast when you have to, not when you’re excited for coffee. Like going to a lady of the night and asking for a cuddle. The result is a lot of decaf that tastes like “coffee, but slightly wrong” and makes people feel like they’ve been punished for wanting to sleep.

True Crime was built on a different premise: what if decaf didn’t suck? What if it tasted like something you’d actually choose, rather than tolerate? The blend hit that sweet spot where people drinking it because they have to (caffeine sensitivity, late-night habits, doctors with opinions) and people drinking it because they want to both ended up happy. The real compliment isn’t when someone says “this is good for a decaf”. It’s when they forget it is decaf, and just call it “good coffee”. True Crime did a lot of that in 2025, and the world is better for it.

Laying the Groundwork: Wholesale Equipment and Better Setups

While beans made their statements, the slower, less glamorous work started in the background: exploring wholesale coffee equipment options.

The idea is simple enough; if Jae’s Roastory can supply great coffee, why not also help partners and customers brew it properly? That means looking at grinders, brewers, espresso machines, batch brewers, and all the accessories that turn beans into something magical in the cup. But it also means finding gear that matches the brand’s values: durable, sensible, not greenwashed, not landfill fodder in disguise.

For cafés and wholesale partners, that could mean packages where they can get both coffee and the right tools, with proper guidance. Most would prefer this; rather than a glossy brochure and a sales rep on a commission high. For home users, the longer-term vision is to offer curated setups that help people skip the “buy three wrong grinders first” stage and go straight to a configuration that suits their reality.

That groundwork doesn’t produce fireworks or instant revenue, but it sets up 2026 to be about more than just “here are some beans”. It becomes “here’s how we help you drink better coffee, consistently, without needing a PhD or a second mortgage”.

Coffee in 2026: Lighter Roasts, New Site, More People at the Table

If 2025 was about surviving the squeeze, 2026 is about sharpening the offer. No more quietly eating costs in the hope it’ll all calm down. No more pretending shipping is fine. Instead: clarity, focus, and a bit of bravery/stupidity depending on how you cut it.

New Single Origins and the Shift to Lighter Roasts

First on the list: new single origins; and a deliberate move towards lighter roast profiles.

Not light for the sake of showing off, but light in the sense of letting the origin actually speak. Well-sourced coffee has character: sweetness, acidity, florals, fruit, spice, chocolate, nuts, and all the other tasting notes that sound faintly ridiculous until you actually taste them. Dark roasting can steamroll those differences into oblivion. Lighter roasting done properly lets them through.

The goal for Jae’s Roastory in 2026 isn’t to abandon the comfort crowd or to turn every cup into a cupping bowl experiment. Instead, it’s to widen the spectrum. The house blends aren’t going anywhere, but alongside them you’ll see more single-origin offerings that tell their own story: different farms, different processes, different flavour arcs.

For customers, that means being able to choose their own level of adventure. Want something familiar and chocolatey that behaves well with milk? There’ll be a blend or a carefully chosen origin for that. Want something bright and juicy that makes your brain sit up? That’ll be there too. My job is to make both sound and feel approachable, not intimidating.

A Full Site Redesign: From Functional to Friendly

Next comes the dreaded full site refresh. The current version does the job just about, but 2026 is the year it’s updated to match what the coffee actually deserves.

The new site aims to be:

Clearer - simple navigation, unambiguous categories, no “where on earth do I click” moments.
More educational - short, accessible explanations of processing methods, roast levels, brewing recommendations, and how to choose a coffee based on what you like now.
Faster to purchase from - fewer clicks between “I want Sci-Fi again” and “it’s on its way”.
More personality-driven - still serious about quality, but written in a tone that lets people know this is run by an actual human who drinks the product, not a corporate committee.

That doesn’t just improve conversions; it respects the customer’s time and brain cells. People should be able to land on the site, figure out what they want, and check out before their kettle boils. All without needing to open three extra tabs and a glossary.

Adding Hardware and Coffee Equipment

One of the most exciting shifts for 2026 is the move into *hardware and coffee equipment; making Jae’s Roastory a place where you can get both the beans and the tools to do them justice.

That doesn’t mean turning into a random gadget catalogue. The focus is on curation:

Grinders that actually grind well at the price point, not just look nice on a counter.
Brewers that brew consistently and suit real life (pourover, immersion, batch, espresso).
Kettles, filters, scales, and accessories that pull their weight and don’t self-destruct in a year.

The aim is to connect the dots for customers. If someone loves one of our coffees and usually drinks flat whites, there should be a clear equipment path that helps them make that at home in a way that isn’t either painfully expensive or disappointingly underpowered. If someone’s into single-origin pourovers, there should be a set of brewers and grinders that match that enthusiasm without dragging them into a rabbit hole of conflicting advice.

By pairing coffee and hardware, the brand becomes less “we sell you beans” and more “we help you build a coffee setup that fits you”.

Tastings, Cuppings, and Making Specialty Less Exclusive

Specialty coffee has done a spectacular job of making itself look both fascinating and slightly terrifying. People see flavour wheels, long origin notes, and brewing rituals that resemble a science demonstration, and they either lean in or back slowly away.

In 2026, Jae’s Roastory is leaning hard into opening specialty up, not gatekeeping it. That means more:

Tastings and cuppings - events where people can try multiple coffees side by side, learn how to taste without being judged, and discover what they actually like.
Straight-talking explanations - content and in-person chat that strip away jargon and talk like a human: “if you like X, you’ll probably enjoy Y; if you don’t, that’s fine, here’s another option”.
Onboarding for newcomers - guides, both online and offline, that say “start here” instead of “learn everything”.

The point isn’t to turn everyone into a flavour-note poet. It’s to give people the tools and experiences to move from “coffee is just coffee” to “I know roughly what I like and why”. Once that happens, loyalty tends to follow naturally; not because of tricks, but because people feel seen and catered for.

Sustainability as a Constant, Not a Campaign

Threaded through all of this is sustainability, not as a loud marketing slogan but as a constant background hum that shapes decisions.

That means thinking about:

Sourcing - paying attention to farm practices, relationships, and transparency, not just “what’s cheapest on the broker’s list today”.
Packaging - choosing materials that are less awful for the planet without being useless at keeping coffee fresh.
Shipping and logistics - minimising waste, optimising shipments, and being mindful of carbon-heavy decisions where there are better alternatives.

It also means accepting that sometimes the more sustainable choice is not the cheapest or easiest, and that this will occasionally bump heads with everything else. For someone with ADHD and a love of old Nissans, sustainability is a bit like the sensible friend who reminds you that you can’t keep buying cars that are older than you without at least checking the rust.

But it matters. Coffee is an agricultural product shaped by climate and human effort. Pretending sustainability doesn’t affect the long-term picture is like pretending those ladies of the night don't need hugs too.

The Necessary Awkward Bit: Pricing Reality in 2026

All of these plans live in the same universe as hard numbers. 2025 was the year of absorbing increases and hoping the world calmed down. It didn’t.

So 2026 will also be the year of being blunt about pricing. That means:

Explaining, in plain language, why coffee costs what it does: green prices, labour, energy, packaging, logistics, and the fact that nobody gets rich selling 250g bags.
Adjusting prices where they have to be adjusted, instead of pretending everything is fine while the margin quietly disappears.
Trusting that the people who value well-sourced, carefully roasted coffee will understand; especially if they’re treated like adults and given the full picture.

Handled well, that honesty isn’t just damage control; it’s part of the brand. The same way a well-built keyboard doesn’t hide its materials or construction, a good coffee in 2026 can’t hide what it takes to put something genuinely good in someone’s cup.

The caffeine helps with the conversation. The spreadsheets don’t.