And it's not Starbucks, whose previously announced price changes reached Seattle this week and include a 20-cent hike on 16-ounce Americanos at some stores. (Grammar relief of the week: It's okay to use "whose" in this case, just as it's okay to split verbs.)

This week's defender of price hikes is Sebastian Simsch, co-owner of Seattle Coffee Works (pictured), whose blog post directly addresses recent grousing about price hikes by Michael Allen Smith, the organizer for the Coffee Club of Seattle.

Seattle Coffee Works raised the price of its Seattle Space Espresso Blend by 50 cents to $13.45 a pound because, Simsch wrote, "we use a large percentage of coffee from East Africa in this blend, and simply put that coffee has gotten 20-30% more expensive during this past year. Our modest price increase doesn't go very far to cover that increase."

Simsch also discusses overhead costs for small roasters versus big roasters versus grocery stores, and promises he's not getting rich.

"If our prices were so high as to actually make us some serious money, you would likely find us lounging on the beach rather than in downtown Seattle," he writes.