Coffee Trends

The National Coffee Association(NCA) has released their annual coffee consumer report. This is sort of the State of Coffee. With Coffee Rust spreading, and coffee prices rising, what is the average consumer doing? What are the trends?

Coffee consumption is up, according to this report. Gourmet coffee is on the rise as 34% of adults are drinking the good stuff. Now in fairness, the NCA says, "Gourmet coffee beverages consist of espresso-based beverages, and regular coffee made with gourmet beans." Daily Coffee News interprets this as anyone who drinks an Arabica-based coffee beverage.

Soft drinks lower man on the totem pole. 61% of the adults are drinking coffee, while 41% consume soft drinks. Daily gourmet coffee drinking is highest in the age 25-29 demographic. The kids are drinking coffee. 42% of them are sipping a coffee beverage. The folks at the retirement home are drinking less coffee(wait until I get there).

Hispanic-Americans drink more coffee than any other ethnic group(48%). This is not totally surprising, considering Latin America is a source for most of our coffee. I was struck that Caucasian-Americans only rank at 32%. To be honest, I thought that figure would be over 50%.

Regrettably, single-serve coffee makers are still on the rise. 50% of those surveyed had coffee from a single-serve brewer within the last day. 15% said they own a machine, which is up 12% from last year. 25% of those who don't own a single-serve brewer plan to do so within the next six months. Convenience is pushing away costs, the environment and quality. Sigh.

Harris also has polled on coffee. Their findings were also interesting. Millenials have grown up in the coffee era, and 66% of those folks will go out of their way to get good coffee from their favorite coffee house, as opposed to the convenience of other coffees(gas stations?).

What I found a bit disturbing was the popular coffee brands. The tops three in this survey were(in order): Dunkin Donuts, Einstein Bagels and Starbucks. Please tell me these are not the places the Millenials are running towards.

So it looks like coffee consumption is chugging right along. Maybe some better coffee education can save some folks from mediocre coffee.

Charlie