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Coffee? Thank U, Next

JOAQUIN SARMIENTO
/
JOAQUIN SARMIENTO/AFP

There's a price problem brewing in the coffee industry. Farmers are getting less for their coffee beans, so you'd think we'd be paying less for coffee. But coffee prices at places like Starbucks and other coffee shops have been increasing.

That pricing disconnect comes from a lot of moving parts in the industry. For example, there's an oversupply of coffee beans, and industry-wide moves towards less coffee-reliant drinks, like pumpkin spice lattes or Ariana Grande's "cloud macchiato." Today on The Indicator, how that squares for coffee drinkers.

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Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.
Sally Herships
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