The United States drinks coffee every morning but grows almost none of it. The country consumes more coffee than any other nation while producing only a negligible fraction of what it uses. Its supply comes from thousands of miles away, and the risks associated with that distance are increasingly reflected in prices.
According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, the United States imported $982 million worth of coffee in July 2026 alone. The main sources that month were Colombia, Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. None of these countries are domestic suppliers. Every cup poured in an American kitchen or café has crossed at least one border before reaching the pot.
But the supply chain is far from stable. Nasdaq reports that coffee prices surged in April 2026 after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz drove up shipping rates, insurance, and fuel costs. Robusta inventories dropped to a 16-month low. Coffee prices are now influenced as much by geopolitics and freight costs as by weather in growing regions.
That vulnerability raises a question the industry rarely considers. In a country with the agricultural capacity to grow almost anything, why does one of its most widely consumed daily beverages rely almost entirely on imports? Cafés promote “local coffee,” but in most cases, the local part is the roasting, not the growing. The beans were harvested on another continent. The United States does grow some coffee, with Hawaii producing a small commercial crop. However, that volume is negligible compared with national consumption. For the rest of the market, domestically grown coffee is not a practical option, and it is unlikely to become one anytime soon.
James Harrell is a fifth-generation peanut farmer in Suffolk, Virginia. He did not enter the coffee business with that goal in mind. Instead, he began looking for a new use for a crop his family has cultivated for generations.
Suffolk has a rich history of peanut production. It was once known as the peanut processing capital of the world. Today, the city is also home to major coffee roasting facilities. Harrell recalls standing near a roasting plant, drinking coffee and smelling the beans roasting as peanut harvest season approached. He began wondering about a simple possibility: if a seed can be roasted and brewed, why not a peanut?
“I was drinking coffee and smelling the roasting facilities,” Harrell says. “I thought, why can’t you turn peanuts into something that resembles coffee?”
He gave it a try. He took peanuts home, roasted them, ground them, and brewed them. The experiment failed. The problem was oil. Peanuts are roughly half oil by weight, unlike coffee beans. When roasted peanuts are ground, their oil turns them into something more like peanut butter than coffee grounds.
It took him three years to overcome that challenge. No commercial equipment was available to remove some of the oil without extracting all of it, so he built his own. The process relies only on heat and pressure, and the method remains a trade secret.
The result is a dry, granular product that can be brewed in a coffee maker, producing a beverage similar to coffee in color, aroma, and preparation. It is made entirely from peanuts, with no coffee in the blend.
Harrell’s argument is not that America should stop importing coffee. Rather, he believes the country is making narrower use of its agricultural capabilities than necessary. The United States is the world’s fourth-largest peanut producer, according to Nutfruit Magazine citing Data from USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, behind China, India, and Nigeria. Peanuts are grown at scale, harvested using industrialized machinery, and processed into a relatively limited range of products.
“We’re the first company to get people drinking peanuts,” Harrell says. “We’ve created a category in the peanut industry.”
The product is available online and has been shipped to all 50 states. A caffeinated version is also available, which the company describes as the first purpose-made caffeinated coffee alternative. The process generates roasted peanut oil as a byproduct, which the company sells separately.
The broader idea is about what American agriculture can achieve when farmers are seen as innovators rather than simply commodity suppliers. The next domestic alternative to an imported staple may not require growing a new crop. It may involve finding a new purpose for something the country already produces.
The question is not whether America can grow coffee. It is whether the country is asking the right questions about what it already has.
