Coffee price hikes will bring tough wake-up calls

The seeds of hyperinflation have been sown. Soon the public will have to deal with the harvest.

Coffee drinkers are facing a tough wake-up call: Retailers are finding it increasingly difficult to hold the line as rising commodities prices percolate through the system.

At the Coffee Tree Roasters shops in metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pa., prices have just increased for the first time in at least two years.

"We held out to try to see where the market was going to settle out," said Bill Swoope, co-owner of five coffee shops as well as Iron Star Roasting Co., a wholesale roaster in West Mifflin.