As part of wider growth in the Middle Eastern market, Saudi Arabia’s coffee sector is booming. Not only is the government investing heavily in coffee production through initiatives like the 2022 Year of Saudi Coffee Campaign, but domestic consumption is also rising.

With specialty coffee becoming more popular across the region, coffee shops are playing increasingly important social and cultural roles in Saudi Arabia. And given that the sale and consumption of alcohol is legally prohibited, third wave coffee shops are seemingly becoming new social spaces – particularly for younger generations.

To find out more, I spoke to Osamah Alawwam, co-founder of Roasting House, and Mazen Baset, business development manager and coffee specialist of Coffee Bean Supplies.

You may also like our article on whether Dubai is becoming the specialty coffee hub of the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia & coffee: A brief history

The modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932, but the country’s roots can be traced back centuries.

Like many other Arab countries, Saudi Arabia has a longstanding history of coffee consumption. Many people drink traditional Arabic coffee – known as qahwa – at home and in coffee houses. 

Prepared similarly to Turkish coffee, qahwa is brewed in a dallah, which is a traditional Arabic coffee pot. The coffee is boiled for around 20 minutes, before it is poured into fenjals (small cups with no handles)

In addition to serving qahwa in coffee houses and at home, many people also prepare Arabic coffee at social gatherings in Middle Eastern countries, including weddings and religious events. So given its cultural significance, in 2015, UNESCO added qahwa to its Intangible Cultural World Heritage list.

Moreover, preparing and serving coffee is a sign of hospitality for people from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds in many Arab countries.

The emergence of third wave coffee culture

Compared to other countries around the world, specialty coffee is relatively new to Saudi Arabia. And the market began to mature in line with a wider period of social and political change.

During late 2010 and throughout 2011, anti-government protests spread across several Arab countries – with some resulting in civil unrest and governmental changes. This period of time is referred to as the Arab Spring.

In Saudi Arabia specifically, minor protests led to significant reform, especially in terms of expanding women’s rights in the country. Additionally, former King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud implemented a number of reforms which boosted the country’s economic growth.

As a result, Saudi Arabia’s middle class began to grow – which encouraged more specialty coffee shops and roasters to open.

Premiumisation in the Saudi market

Mazen works at green coffee trader Coffee Bean Supplies in Saudi Arabia.

“Ten years ago, you didn’t see any specialty coffee shops or roasters in the country,” he tells me. “Today, there’s huge demand for high-end or unique coffees, with a lot of competition between Saudi roasters to bring quality coffee to market.”

Premiumisation, as Mazen describes, is a process by which roasters sell more exclusive, rare, and superior quality coffee to drive brand appeal and increase prices. Ultimately, this adds a greater sense of value for the buyer, and makes them more willing to pay higher prices.

“There’s also been, however, a big move for roasters to sell quality coffee at affordable prices to B2B clients, so they can sell the coffee to end consumers at very low prices,” he adds. “The most in-demand coffee is Ethiopian, which is always popular in the Saudi market.”

Osamah co-founded Roasting House, which is one of the first specialty coffee roasters in Saudi Arabia.

“The first specialty coffee shop in the country opened in 2012,” he explains. In a little over ten years, the market has exploded – with an estimated 3,550 branded coffee shops according to data from World Coffee Portal.

Are coffee shops becoming new social hubs?

As in many other markets around the world, larger chains like Starbucks helped to popularise specialty coffee in Saudi Arabia – and established coffee shops as the “third place” where people meet and socialise.

This concept, however, seems to have taken on even more meaning in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern markets. As the sale and consumption of alcohol is illegal in the country, many people drink more coffee – including at later hours in the day.

In turn, some coffee shops in larger cities like Riyadh, Jeddah, and Buraydah are extending their opening hours to become late-night social hubs, with some even open 24 hours a day. 

Drinking coffee at later hours is not uncommon in Middle Eastern countries, particularly during Islamic religious holidays like Eid and Ramadan (except during daylight fasting hours for the latter). In other cultures where people tend to drink and socialise in bars or pubs (which both serve alcohol) late in the evenings and at night, coffee shops are instead acting as these important social spaces – particularly for younger generations.

Additionally, gender-segregated coffee shops are becoming less common in Saudi Arabia, with more women also working in these businesses. 

There has been clear progress made in taking steps towards achieving gender equity in the country (although more can certainly be made), which is largely a result of the government’s Vision 2030 initiative. A key priority of the development strategy is to create 1 million jobs for women, as well as to improve access to education and promote active participation in competitive sports.

Naturally, more inclusive social policies are also encouraging more and more young people to socialise and mingle in coffee shops in Saudi Arabia.

Looking to the future

With economic prosperity and more progressive policies, the future of Saudi Arabia’s specialty coffee market is promising. As younger generations continue to have higher disposable incomes, it’s likely they will keep visiting coffee shops on a regular basis.

In recent years, we’ve seen a number of premium café chains launch in the country, including:

• Most notably Japanese chain % Arabica – which opened its largest roastery in Saudi Arabia in 2022
• Barn’s
• Half Million
• France’s Café Kitsuné
• EL&N, which is a UK-based company

“Alongside a growing number of annual events, more and more young coffee professionals are also taking part in competitions,” Osamah says – which is likely to drive premiumisation even further.

As well as encouraging more domestic consumption, the Saudi Arabian government is investing significantly in increasing coffee production, too. Mazen explains that the government-backed Saudi Coffee Company has invested US $320 million to boost annual production from 300 tonnes to 2,500 tonnes by 2032 – an ambitious goal to say the least.

Coffee has played an important role in Saudi Arabian culture for centuries, but specialty coffee is certainly shaping modern-day KSA in a truly unique way.

Market growth is exponential and shows no signs of slowing down. And with coffee shops acting as essential social spaces, we can expect to see Saudi Arabia become even more of a key player in the global specialty coffee sector.

Enjoyed this? Then read our article on what it’s like to be a barista in the Middle East.

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Furthermore, while instant coffee products are readily available in the country, overall coffee consumption remains relatively low. It’s estimated that Nigerian consumers drank around 1,000 tonnes of coffee in 2020, which, while a low figure, does represent a 23% increase on the previous year.

So with the rise in coffee consumption, can we say that Nigerian coffee culture is evolving? Will it scale in the future? And can we expect changes?

I spoke with two local coffee professionals to find out. Read on to learn more about what they had to say about Nigeria’s coffee culture.

You might also like our article exploring the Nigerian coffee sector.

Coffee culture in Nigeria

Like many other countries in Africa, Nigeria is largely a nation of tea drinkers – despite its once-heavy reliance on coffee as a cash crop.

Coffee was first introduced to the country in the late 19th century and exports began soon after that. By the 1930s, the Nigerian government started to promote coffee cultivation by providing farmers with arabica and robusta seedlings.

Coffee production peaked in the country in the late 1960s, mid-1980s, and even saw another peak as recently as 2006, with some 89,000 60kg bags produced. Since then, however, production volumes have dropped by more than 50%.

Sofia Gambino is the founder and owner of Vintage Café in Abuja, Nigeria.

Sofia tells me that the Nigerian government’s focus on increasing oil exports for economic growth is almost solely responsible for the decline of the country’s coffee industry.

“Farmers moved away from cocoa, coffee, and tea production and focused on the oil industry [as it was much more profitable for them],” she says. “We have to revive the coffee industry in Nigeria.”

An overview of coffee culture in Nigeria

Instant products currently dominate the Nigerian coffee market. Industry analysts estimate that about 75% of Nigerian coffee consumers drink Nescafé instant coffee. This is often bought from roadside kiosks, which sell Nescafé in larger cities and towns across the country.

Princess Adeyinka is the founder of Happy Coffee in Nigeria. 

She tells me that most consumers in the country drink coffee at home or at work, rather than on the go. She also notes that coffee shop culture in Nigeria is still in its early stages.

“It’s still developing,” she says. “Most coffee companies in the country are trying to help Nigerians [know more about quality coffee].

“We are trying to create our own unique coffee shop culture,” she adds.

Sofia says that marketing is essential to encourage more people to drink coffee, as well as improving coffee quality.

“If your coffee is high-quality, you need to focus on marketing so that people can recognise your brand,” she explains. “What’s more, if you sell consistently good coffee, people will drink it.

“We have women-led coffee businesses in Nigeria, like Happy Coffee which works with local farmers, and is looking to revive the coffee sector,” she adds.

Moving beyond instant coffee

Besides instant coffee, there are also a growing number of international roasters offering roast & ground coffee in Nigeria. These include European household names such as Lavazza and illycaffè.

“People in Nigeria associate Italy with high-quality espresso machines, brew methods, and roast profiles,” Sophia says.

She adds that there is also a focus on developing the market for local coffee shops and roasters.

Sofia works with the Nigerian Export Promotion Commission to waive fees for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the coffee sector so that they have easier access to the market.

“We are working with the commission to implement a two-year fee waiver for SMEs to help them establish their business before being charged fees,” she explains.

However, one interesting development is a focus on domestic consumption of Nigerian coffee. For some coffee businesses in the country, Princess says, this is becoming more prominent.

“Nigeria has some high-quality coffee beans,” she says. “Between 90% and 95% of coffee consumed in the country is imported, so by sourcing locally, we can promote both local production and local consumption.”

As part of this, some coffee shops in Nigeria are establishing their own coffee farms with support from the government – including Vintage Café.

“Our coffee farm is in Taraba state because of its high altitude,” Sofia says. “There are also tea farms in this region.”

Currently, arabica is grown in only two states in the country: Cross River and Taraba. Arabica production remains relatively low, as robusta makes up most of the coffee grown in the country.

Sofia says Vintage Café will start off growing 300ha of coffee plants and plans to produce high-quality coffee within the next three to four years. The company works with female producers and supports them through education and welfare initiatives.

“For now, we’re working with smallholder producers to understand the quality and yields they are capable of producing,” she tells me. “This way, we can control coffee quality and [help to improve it].”

Promoting Nigerian coffee culture

In a bid to develop coffee culture in Nigeria, Sofia helped to launch the country’s first-ever barista championship in June 2021. She says the aim of the event is to give young people better access to the World Coffee Championships.

“I want to encourage more youth, as well as anyone interested or curious to learn about coffee, to become a barista,” she adds.

Two years prior to the first edition of the Nigerian Barista Championships, the Lagos Coffee Festival (LaCoFe) took place in the country’s largest city, with the theme of “Coffee, Culture, and Community”. Princess is the founder of the event.

“The LaCoFe is about bringing together the whole coffee value chain: producers, consumers, roasters, traders, the government, and policymakers,” she explains.

Sadly, the festival hasn’t been held since 2019 because of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, there are plans to host another event soon, and Sofia says she hopes this will feature barista champions, traders, producers, and coffee equipment manufacturers from around the world.

“We want to grow coffee culture in Nigeria and bring the coffee industry back to life,” Sofia adds. “We want to encourage farmers to grow more coffee, provide more educational opportunities for roasters, and encourage youth to work on and understand more about espresso machines.

“The possibilities are endless, and we hope this event will plant a seed that will grow into so much more,” she adds.

Looking to the future

Princess believes that local media plays a huge role in promoting more domestic coffee consumption.

“Media is part of coffee culture,” she says. “[Local and national publications] are aware of the events and how we are trying to shape coffee culture in Nigeria.”

But ultimately, she says it is up to coffee professionals to teach others how to brew and drink coffee in a number of different ways.

Some coffee shops in the country are starting to offer a wider range of coffee products to encourage more consumption. When doing so, Princess highlights how it’s important to offer products that align with Nigerian culture so that consumers will be more interested.

Sofia agrees, saying that building a base of knowledge on high-quality coffee needs to start at the producer level.

“Farmers need to know more about their coffee,” she explains. “They should be proud of their product and be at the forefront of promoting it, mainly by being coffee drinkers themselves.

“Nigerian producers need to know more about the flavours and aromas in their coffee,” she concludes.

Although low-quality instant coffee continues to dominate the market in Nigeria, there is certainly hope that the country’s coffee culture will develop in the years to come.

However, this means stakeholders in the coffee industry will need to work closely with the government if the market is to grow sustainably.

Many local coffee companies are already helping to change perceptions about coffee consumption with notable levels of success. And if more coffee events are to take place in Nigeria, consumption of higher-quality coffee is likely to keep growing.

Enjoyed this? You might also like our article exploring coffee consumption in Kenya.

Photo credits: Vintage Café, Kaldi Coffee, Mai Shayi Coffee

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While it’s by no means a leading market where third wave coffee culture is concerned, the CBI estimates that by 2025, specialty coffee in France will comprise some 10% of the total coffee market.

One of the growing destinations for specialty coffee in France is Toulouse. The city is the fourth-largest in France and remains a major trade hub, largely thanks to its location between the Mediterranean Sea and Spain. 

To learn more about the city’s specialty coffee shops, I explored some of them. Read on to find out what I discovered.

You may also like our specialty coffee shop tour of Vilnius, Lithuania.

Neroli Coffee Society 

Neroli Coffee Society, which first opened in September 2019, is located in the historic Les Carmes district of Toulouse. Neroli has a strong focus on high-quality coffee, as well as a range of internationally-inspired food and beverage items on its brunch and lunch menus.

Fresh, organic, and locally-sourced ingredients are used in the dishes, which are offered alongside freshly-made juices and smoothies.

The menu also includes a variety of coffees and teas, as well as a range of plant-based milks. Neroli roasts its own coffee, which is organic and Fair Trade-certified. One of the several coffees available is the Neroli Premium Organic Blend, which is comprised of Peruvian and Sumatran coffees. The blend has notes of nuts and chocolate.

As far as café design is concerned, Neroli is heavily influenced by US West Coast coffee shops, with wooden finishes, pastel tones, neon lights, and large communal tables.

Le Café Cerise

On the banks of the Garonne river is Le Café Cerise, also close to the famous Quai de la Daurade riverside district. Founded by couple Valentin Tihy and Stéphanie Mirouse-Tihy, the specialty coffee shop first opened in 2015. Two years later, they developed a built-in roasting space to roast their own coffee and host workshops.

“Our goal is to [express] the terroir of our coffees,” Valentin explains. “We want to show our customers that each coffee [has its own unique complex flavour profile], depending on the variety, the producer, and the environment in which it’s grown.”

One of the most eye-catching features of Le Café Cerise is the range of coffees on offer, including a pour over coffee from Finca La Chumeca in Costa Rica. As for the rest of Le Café Cerise’s menu, there are a number of salads, granola bowls, and sandwich options, as well as freshly baked goods like pastries, cakes, cookies, and pancakes.

From the upstairs seating area, there is also an excellent view of the river. 

Hayuco Coffee Boutique

Hayuco Coffee Roasters has two locations in Toulouse, but one of the most unique specialty coffee shops in the city is a collaboration between the roaster and Tonsor & Cie, an old-fashioned barber shop.

Hayuco Coffee Roasters was established in 2018 by Karim Boukercha and Carlos Rodriguez, with the goal of driving forward the city’s coffee scene. Hayuco has a range of different coffees, as well as hosting brewing and roasting workshops to help educate customers.

This unique concept store has elements of wood in its interior design, which helps to create a warm and inviting atmosphere. 

LoMa Pâtisserie

LoMa Pâtisserie is an artisan pastry shop that first opened its doors in June 2019. It’s also located in Les Carmes, and is well known for its simple, yet delicious, local produce on the menu. Their chocolatine (or pain au chocolat) has been voted the best in the city. 

The owners, Lolita and Mathieu Champagne, previously opened a coffee shop in Ecuador, before they decided to relocate to Toulouse. They prepare all of their food items in the café, including artisan pastries, desserts, pizza, and sandwiches. 

LoMa Pâtisserie uses locally roasted coffee from Hayuco and Le Café Cerise.

Café La Fiancée

Close to the Quartier de la Daurade is Café La Fiancée, which was opened in 2012 by longtime friends Olivier Coulomb and Arnaud Pimenta. The two owners shared the same goal of elevating Toulouse’s specialty coffee scene. There is also a second location in Marseille, which opened in 2018.

Café La Fiancée serves a wide range of coffee, tea, and hot drinks, with coffee roasted by Coutume Café in Paris. As well as beverages, the coffee shop has a variety of cakes, pastries, and sandwiches, with a rotating weekly seasonal brunch menu that uses locally-sourced produce.

Alongside its terrace seating area, Café La Fiancée has large bay windows and a cosy interior design.

How is the Toulouse specialty coffee scene evolving?

Loïc Duban is a barista at Le Café Cerise. He explains that specialty coffee culture is still relatively new to France, and that traditional café culture prevails in most parts of the country.

“It is still difficult for us to educate French people on specialty coffee because they are so used to classic European, Italian-style coffee culture,” he says. “But we’ve seen huge growth in the community and increasing interest in specialty coffee over the past few years.”

He adds: “Since the pandemic, people have started to think differently [about food and beverage quality], so they want better products.”

In particular, there has been growing interest in French specialty coffee culture from younger generations. In Toulouse particularly, the specialty coffee scene has been growing quickly, thanks to the skilled and dedicated baristas, coffee shop owners, and roasters in the city.

Toulouse’s specialty coffee scene may not be on par with other French cities like Paris or Bordeaux, but there are still many third wave coffee shops in the city, all with a focus on improving the quality of coffee on offer.

As well as this, there is a unique sense of community that exists not only among baristas, roasters, and customers, but also between the coffee shops themselves. 

There’s no doubt that in the future, Toulouse’s specialty coffee shop market will continue to grow. However, it’s unclear as yet just how quickly it will evolve – even if it is evident that there is space for further innovation and expansion.

Enjoyed this? Then read our specialty coffee shop tour of Lisbon, Portugal.

Photo credits: Vasileia Fanarioti, LoMa Pâtisserie, Hayuco Coffee Roasters, Loïc Duban, La Fiancée, Neroli Coffee Society

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In 2007, Caffeine Roasters, the most popular coffee chain in Lithuania, was established and quickly took the domestic market by storm. A few years on, Lithuania’s SCA chapter was founded and began organising coffee competitions.

Today, the country is a growing specialty coffee consuming market, with its own coffee festival and plenty of coffee shops well worth visiting. As is the case with many European countries, however, specialty coffee has the strongest presence in the country’s capital: Vilnius.

To learn more about the coffee scene in Vilnius, I toured five specialty coffee shops in the Lithuanian capital. Read on to find out what I found. 

You might also like our specialty coffee shop tour of Berlin, Germany.

Taste Map Coffee Roasters

The story of Taste Map Coffee Roasters began in 2011 with a 10kg roaster, a pallet of coffee, a lot of enthusiasm, and a goal of driving forward the Lithuanian specialty coffee scene. 

Today, 11 years on, husband and wife Ieva Malijauskaitė and Domas Ivonis manage a roastery and four coffee shop locations in Vilnius.

Both owners have more than ten years of experience in the coffee industry. Between them, they have won numerous national championships, including the Barista Championship, Latte Art Championship, and Cup Tasters Championship.

With Taste Map, Domas says their aim was to highlight the unique flavours of coffee and guide the Lithuanian coffee community to find out what high-quality coffee can taste like.

“We only work with coffee sourcing companies we have built a trusting relationship with,” Domas says. “We also have a direct relationship with Daterra. We love their coffees and we participate in their Masterpieces auction every year.”

As for the ambience of their coffee shops, each one is different from the others. There are elements of wood, bricks, and clay combined with art, with the aim of creating a homely atmosphere.

Strange Love Coffee Roasters

Strange Love Coffee Roasters opened its doors in July 2015, when specialty coffee in Lithuania was still very much emerging.

Eimantas Vilčinskas, the head roaster behind Strange Love, tells me that the company was founded to educate local coffee consumers and raise awareness about what high-quality coffee could taste like.

“We maintain a close relationship with several suppliers in order to have a great variety of coffees on offer,” he adds. “We are always curious and eager to discover more.”

Strange Love has a two-floor design with a balcony and a beautiful garden, which is a great place to relax and escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. 

Italala Caffè

Italala Caffè welcomed customers for the first time in January 2018. Located in the heart of Vilnius, Italala is inspired by Italian coffee culture, and was voted the city’s best coffee spot in 2019. 

At Italala Caffè, you’ll find coffee from Ditta Artigianale accompanied by a wide selection of herbal teas. There are also a range of desserts, pastries, and paninis, all of which are handmade in the shop. 

Goda Pangonyte handles social media and communications at the café. She explains that the business is constantly driving up its standards for quality.

“We like to recognise the seasonality of all of our products,” she says. “This is why we make our own syrups and create seasonal drinks.

“These include a lavender latte during the summer, an apple pie latte during autumn, and a mimosa latte during spring.”

Kavos Reikalai

Brothers Martynas and Aistis Normontai decided to open Kavos Reikalai back in 2018. Their goal was to create a coffee shop where people could both enjoy specialty coffee and find the biggest selection of retail coffee equipment and bags of coffee in the city.

Today, Kavos Reikalai has two locations in Vilnius, each offering two options for espresso and ten different filter coffees. They also have arguably the widest selection of coffee brewing accessories on offer in the city.

Samanta Sadauskytė is the manager at Kavos Reikalai. According to her, the ritual of brewing coffee is incredibly important to the business.

“We wanted to introduce people to the coffee ritual philosophy by giving them the chance to learn about all these different accessories,” she explains. “This is why we invite people to participate in our workshops and learn how to use all these tools that are so new to them.”

The equipment selection includes kettles, brewers, grinders, milk jugs, scales, and cleaning and maintenance supplies. It also stocks a wide selection of retail coffee beans from several Lithuanian roasters, as well as overseas options such as Rocket Bean from Latvia and Java Coffee from Poland. 

Backstage Roasters

Backstage Café & Roasters was founded in 2018 by two photographers, Ieva Markevičiūtė and Vytenis Petrošius, who knew nothing about coffee at the time. They picked a slightly unconventional spot down a side street, making it difficult to find for some.

Goda Gedvilaite, now a manager and barista at Backstage, says that she couldn’t even find the shop when it first opened.

“I wondered why someone would open it there,” she says. “It was brave, but I was not sure it was going to work.”  

It did, and four years and three locations later, Backstage is now well-established in Vilnius’ specialty coffee scene.

In spite of its name, Backstage didn’t actually start life as a roastery. Today, however, it sources coffee from the Vinhal family farm in Brazil and Beanspire Coffee in Thailand, roasted by head roaster Robertas Muravskij and his team. 

How is Vilnius’ coffee scene evolving?

As we’ve mentioned, the emergence of these coffee shops in the last ten to 15 years alone is indicative of the explosive growth in Vilnius’ specialty coffee scene.

As part of this, we’ve also seen the development of the Vilnius Coffee Festival, which originally began life as Vilnius Coffee Days some 12 years ago. This event celebrates Lithuania’s specialty coffee scene and its hospitality community, and is the stage for its three national SCA competitions: the Barista Championship, the Latte Art Championship, and the Cup Tasters Championship. 

Laurynas Arlauskas is the events coordinator for the Lithuanian chapter of the SCA. He says that coffee is very much at the heart of the event.

“Baristas take the centre stage,” he explains. “We wish to highlight their craftsmanship and want them to feel proud about their role in our community.”

Looking at the rapid growth and expansion of several of the coffee shops on the list, it’s clear that Vilnius has a thriving specialty coffee scene that is growing year-on-year.

With the recent emergence of its SCA chapter and the proliferation of these specialty coffee shops through the 2010s, it seems set to grow throughout this decade and beyond. Many of these chains are already household names in the city. The hope will be that, in the future, they can drive the city’s presence on the international stage. 

However, whether this explosive growth will continue remains to be seen. It’s clear that there is space for innovation and expansion in Vilnius, and what comes next is sure to be interesting.

Enjoyed this? Then try our specialty coffee shop tour of Spain’s Basque Country.

Photo credits: Goda Gedvilaitė, Laurynas Arlauskas, Samanta Sadauskytė, Goda Pangonytė, Eimantas Vilčinskas, Domas Ivonis

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Coffee first came to Prague in the early 16th century. However, in the five hundred years since, its coffee culture has evolved and changed in a number of ways. Today, while the city is by no means a third wave coffee hotspot, new roasteries and specialty coffee shops are starting to open in significant numbers.

To learn more, I spoke to some of the city’s coffee experts about its history and what Prague’s coffee culture looks like today. Read on to learn more.

You might also like our article exploring Italian coffee culture and the third wave.

A look to the past – where did it all start?

Today, there are plenty of places to get a cup of coffee all across the different districts of Prague. However, it wasn’t always this way. 

Originally, coffee was a drink for the bourgeois and the wealthy. In the 20th century, many of the city’s art nouveau cafés like Slavia and Louvre would attract high profile clientele such as Albert Einstein, Franz Kafka, and Czechoslovakia’s first president, Thomas Masaryk. 

But centuries before that, almost 500 years ago, we have the story of Prague’s first coffee shop (or kafírna). This was opened not by a Czech, but by a Turkish man named Jiří Deodat. Before that, coffee was only sold in Prague by pharmacies as a remedy for gastric and digestive issues. 

Once Deodat came onto the scene, passers-by could experience new exotic flavours as he roasted and served fresh coffee with his coal fire oven. This is how the Czech version of Turkish coffee (turecká káva) first became popular in the country.

More than 200 years later, in 1843, coffee saw another boom with the invention of the sugar cube in the town of Dačice, just to the south of Prague. However, while coffee’s popularity continued to grow through the late 19th century, it became an inessential luxury during and in the years following the Second World War.

This perception of luxury stuck, but in spite of it, the first official patent for decaf coffee was registered in 1962 by Zdeněk Záček. The city then waited another 34 years for a taste of specialty coffee, when the country’s first micro roaster, Cafe Ebel, opened on Kaprova Street in the city centre. 

The scene today

Zdeněk Hýbl is a barista, a roaster, and the co-owner of Onesip and Candycane. He tells me that Prague’s coffee scene is still developing, and a lack of access to modern equipment is one of the reasons why. 

He says: “I think that here, people are opening coffee shops with less advanced equipment: old second hand espresso machines, grinders, and so on. 

“They have to think more about the coffee and how to prepare the coffee. [In some cases], they are better at making coffee because of this disadvantage.”

As a result, he says Prague’s coffee scene has an almost laissez-faire attitude when compared with established specialty coffee hotspots like London. He believes this means there’s far less pressure to perform or impress, resulting in simple, great coffee in a multitude of styles. 

Zdeněk says this can be quite refreshing, but notes that many say that the service in Prague could be improved. 

Covid-19 & Prague’s coffee culture

In spite of local restrictions on hospitality businesses, many coffee professionals in Prague have taken the Covid-19 pandemic as something of an opportunity to pivot and adapt.

Jan Malec was an early member of the team at EMA espresso, one of the first specialty coffee shops to open in Prague. He’s now a roaster at Alf & Bet, and says he’s incredibly grateful to have survived this period.

He says: “I have to thank every single person on our team for doing the best job they could, and every single customer that helped us during this period. Not just for us, either – I am glad for every cafe that is still open.”

However, he also said that Prague’s coffee scene is still very much alive as the city starts to emerge on the other side of the pandemic. According to him, the promising signs are that many popular spots have either remained open or reopened in recent times.

Despite this, Jan notes that there is definitely room for improvement.

“Going forward, coffee shops need to become even better at what they do,” Jan says. “They need to provide even better service for the customer, and support the local coffee community.”

Jan says that in the days before specialty, cafés and other coffee businesses in the city developed because of their values, their relationships, and their ability to brew delicious coffee.

However, in order to achieve this, he notes that coffee businesses need something else: staff. In Prague, he notes that there’s been something of a change in barista work over the past few years.

“Working as a barista is now ‘trendy’,” he tells me. “Sometimes, this means there is a lack of basic knowledge or deeper interest in coffee when doing the job.” 

Jan says that in response, coffee shops in Prague need to cultivate an environment that allows employees to grow and develop. He urges coffee shops in the city to take more of a long-term approach when hiring staff, and to understand their career goals.

Looking ahead: How will things change in Prague’s coffee scene?

Prague’s unique demographic and its history as a hub of culture – if not coffee – make it likely that the sector will grow and develop in the years to come.

In particular, in recent years, more and more roasters have emerged in Prague. These smaller roasters are now starting to challenge the more established classic players and brands.

Jan also notes that there has been evolution in terms of specific products and drinks. One such example is nitro cold brew, which he says has become increasingly popular in recent years. 

“People have also started to notice the difference in how lighter roasts taste compared to darker roasts,” he says. “But the biggest increase in popularity is in flat whites.”

Overall, this evolution in consumer preferences will help the sector push forward and develop. But what else needs to change?

Mário Adamčík is a Brewers Cup and National AeroPress Champion from Slovakia who has been based in Prague for years. In his opinion, baristas in the city need to double down on their training if the sector is going to evolve.

“In general, I think that coffee professionals have more work to do than ever before,” he says. “Today, we have to spend a lot of time on education and self development. 

“We understand that coffee is not just about taste and having the best sample on the table. It’s also about customers, service, and work routine. This is true in Prague, just as it is everywhere else.”

Ultimately, Mário says that professionals working in Prague’s specialty coffee scene should strive to have a more thorough approach to their day-to-day tasks, and says they should also focus on training.

He recommends starting with strong customer service skills, equipment maintenance, and leadership skills.

“Today, coffee competitions are mainly about learning the rules and making no mistakes during the presentation,” he concludes. “This does not at all reflect the real work of the barista behind the bar.”

So, altogether, what does this mean? Well, firstly – Prague’s storied history as a city of culture makes it a wonderful place for specialty coffee to blossom. But as it does so, baristas, according to our interviewees, need to focus on substance over style.

According to them, there’s a need for a more level-headed approach for people working in the coffee sector. Only by honing their technical and customer service skills will they be able to improve the city’s reputation and put it on the map as a specialty coffee hotspot.

If professionals in the city manage to do this, coffee businesses in Prague will be able to improve their profile and lead the charge for the city’s coffee sector. If this can be achieved, the future looks bright for Prague, and it might not be too long before it rivals specialty coffee hotspots around the world.

Enjoyed this? Then read our article on Greek coffee culture.

Photo credits: Kryštof Susa, Lukáš Kozel

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Furthermore, while Europe has historically been associated with the emergence of coffeehouse culture, the first café actually opened in Tokyo as early as the late 1880s. Since then, Japanese coffee shop culture has seen no shortage of evolution, coming to incorporate both the old and the new. 

However, this kind of progression ultimately influences beverage trends over the years, raising one key question: how can café owners keep up with changing consumer demands?

To learn more, we spoke with Nobumasa Shimoyama – the owner of Superrandom café and a Roastelier by Nescafé ambassador. Read on to find out about Japan’s thriving coffee culture.

You may also like our article on why would coffee shops choose to roast their own beans?

A history of coffee culture in Japan

Japanese coffee consumption reached a height of 7.5 million 60kg bags in 2019, making it one of the largest coffee consumers in the world. However, it took several centuries for the Japanese population to acclimate to the taste of coffee.

Between the mid-1600s and mid-1800s, Japan was something of an isolated trading nation; its only trade route to Europe was with the Netherlands. And while Dutch traders did initially bring coffee to Japan, the initial response was negative.

However, towards the end of the 19th century, coffee started to become more popular as art-deco style coffee shops – locally referred to as kissatens – began to open. Kissatens only offered black coffee or tea; they focused on simplicity, while still creating an inviting, hospitable atmosphere.

Through the late 20th century, consumer trends switched towards convenience and mass consumption. Larger-scale chains (such as Doutor and Starbucks) opened in the 1980s and 90s and vending machines started to offer canned coffee beverages. 

However, while these products boosted at-home consumption through the 20th century, kissatens focused on offering entirely new beverage categories.

One of the most prominent was hand brewed pour over coffee, which became popular at the turn of the 21st century in many kissatens. Owners would continually develop and tweak their recipes in order to brew the best-tasting coffee, as quality was always a focus for these establishments.

Kissatens themselves have significantly influenced the global third wave coffee movement, perhaps most notably by inspiring some specialty coffee brands, such as Blue Bottle Coffee. Blue Bottle’s founder, James Freeman, first visited a kissaten in 2007, before opening locations in the US which were heavily influenced by Japanese coffee shop culture.

Prominent coffee trends in Japan

Nobumasa Shimoyama is the winner of several latte art competitions, including the 2012 Vancouver International Latte Art Competition and 2016 Coffee Fest Anaheim Latte Art Competition. He is also the owner of Pathfinder, a café and barista school in Osaka.

He says: “Japanese consumers typically drink coffee between waking up and starting work, or to improve concentration [at] work. They also drink coffee to relax with friends [or] alone.”

While the country’s kissatens strictly focus on brewed coffee, modern cafés across Japan have started to serve espresso-based drinks. These are becoming increasingly popular.

“Office workers tend to [drink] black coffee at the beginning of the work day or during breaks,” Nobumasa adds. “Younger people, however, tend to [consume sweeter beverages], such as lattes.”

Despite their differences, however, both traditional and modern Japanese coffee shops have become renowned for pushing the boundaries of beverage preparation. 

For example, some famous kissatens experiment with the coffee they buy. One famous example, Café de l’Ambre, serves a house blend that has been aged for seven years. 

Modern coffee shops, meanwhile, have become renowned for pioneering new brewing techniques. One such example is Japanese-style iced drip coffee. This cold filter coffee beverage is made by extracting hot coffee over ice to highlight its acidity and brightness.

Nobumasa also notes that the pandemic has seriously influenced the Japanese coffee market.

“Coffee consumption in Japan is increasing compared to 20 years ago,” he says. “From late 2019, consumption [in] cafés, restaurants, and hotels decreased due to the effects of Covid-19.

“However, home consumption grew during this time, and the sales of roasted coffee in-store have also increased.”

This growing demand for at-home consumption, combined with a passionate segment of specialty coffee consumers, has led Japanese coffee drinkers to become more interested in the coffee they buy.

“Selling [a] wide variety [of single origins] is in [more] demand, especially in residential areas,” Nobumasa says.

Roasting trends & the art of in-store roasting

Nobumasa explains that because of the breadth and diversity of Japan’s coffee shops, roast profiles can vary widely in the Japanese market. 

He says: “Japanese consumers tend to prefer dark roasted coffee. Most of the coffees offered by major coffee chains, and convenience stores are dark roasted coffee.

“However, coffee which is lightly roasted with a bright and soft acidity is becoming more popular. More and more consumers are starting to enjoy the diversity of coffee.

These emerging trends in roast profiles mean that café owners must be able to quickly adapt to shifting consumer demands. 

One way which café owners can capitalise on this is through Roastelier by Nescafé, a countertop roasting solution which has just launched in the Japanese market. This product allows coffee businesses to efficiently create a range of roast profiles to meet consumer demand.

Nobumasa explains that the trend of coffee shops roasting their own beans is becoming more and more prominent throughout Japan. 

“The number of coffee shops or cafés with roasters has increased,” he explains. “[These] shops serve specialty coffee [by the cup] and mainly sell beans.”

However, as most commercial roasting equipment is large and tends to require its own dedicated space to operate, installation can be a potential challenge for smaller coffee shops.

Nobumasa says: “Installing large machinery and finding the space can be hurdles. However, Roastelier has a compact design that does not require much space, and can be easily installed, even in a small [coffee] shop.”

Furthermore, thanks to their smaller sizes, countertop roasting solutions allow café owners to focus on freshness by roasting in smaller batches.

“With Roastelier, coffee beans can be roasted in small batches of 250g, so there is less waste and the process is easy to manage,” Nobumasa concludes.

How can café owners meet the changing needs of consumers?

Freshness is a key consideration for many Japanese coffee consumers. 

Nobumasa tells me that Roastelier’s flagship Japan store in Kobe uses three-hour post-roast “Ultimate Freshly Roasted Coffee” for a unique sensory experience. He, alongside 2016 World Brewers Cup 2016 champion Tetsu Kasuya, collaborated on Roastelier’s menu of signature coffee blends and recipes.

“Firstly, Roastelier allows consumers to enjoy fresh coffee beans which were roasted in-store,” he tells me. “However, at the coffee shop, you can not only taste the freshly roasted coffee, but also experience the aroma and [craft] of roasting that you rarely see in [cafés].

“Japanese consumers love to enjoy delicious coffee at home, but [also] want a little luxury when eating out,” he adds. “[Cafés] that roast in-store can meet both [of those] needs.”

Nobumasa adds that in-store roasting can support the country’s consumer base to “understand coffee more” and improve traceability.

For instance, Roastelier’s system uses a QR code to identify the coffee, providing baristas with a variety of appropriate roast profiles. Scanning the code showcases the unique terroir of each coffee.

Nobumasa adds: “Consumers want to enjoy a variety of origins; coffees from Brazil, Colombia, and Ethiopia. 

“Each bean requires its own light, medium, or dark roast profile, and Roastelier can roast uniformly with a single touch.”

He also notes that it’s not only consumers who benefit from countertop roasting setups.

“It’s great for coffee shops to create and roast their own coffee and taste it themselves. 

“Over time, it can even be cheaper for cafés to buy green beans and roast themselves rather than buying roasted coffee from wholesale suppliers.”

In a thriving coffee market like Japan, keeping up with ever-changing consumer trends can be a challenge. In-store roasting with a solution like Roastelier is one way to respond; it allows coffee shops to roast for an ever-growing range of origins, brewing methods, and consumer priorities.

Nobumasa concludes by saying: “Café owners can pursue the taste they are looking for in their coffees.”

Enjoyed this? Then read our article on 5 specialty coffee shops worth visiting in Tokyo, Japan.

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But what does New Zealand’s coffee culture look like today?

To learn more about modern trends in New Zealand’s coffee culture, I spoke with four professionals from across the country: a national champion, a technician, a barista, and an operations manager. Read on to find out what they said.

You may also enjoy a tour of Wellington’s specialty coffee shops.

Specialty in New Zealand: Small, but growing 

Overall, coffee consumption in New Zealand is going strong. Espresso remains the industry standard (as it does in many consumer markets). The flat white continues to be the most popular individual beverage, with the long black not far behind.

Phill Kearney is a barista at Daily Daily and La Marzocco NZ’s technical coordinator. “In New Zealand, we have a really strong favour towards espresso-based beverages,” he says. “You can go anywhere in the country; you can go to a rural town, and you can still have an espresso.”

But while the country retains its vibrant café culture, the presence of third wave coffee shops and roasters is still small. As with many other consuming markets around the world, most of New Zealand’s coffee drinkers still see coffee as a commodity. 

However, Phill says this is slowly starting to change. “[Specialty coffee] is definitely growing,” he tells me.

Quality is continually improving

Sam Low was the 2016 New Zealand barista champion, and has since represented New Zealand on the global stage at coffee competitions. He says he’s observed how awareness is gradually shifting towards specialty coffee. 

“The specialty coffee scene in New Zealand is small and slowly growing,” he says. “I have noticed consumers starting to develop more tasteful and sustainable food and beverage choices over the years. 

“Consumers are seeking out better coffee options; they’re more concerned about things like the traceability of the coffee or the expertise of the barista.”

Sam adds that New Zealanders actively choose to support local cafés and roasters, instead of large chains like Starbucks. 

“International chains have a hard time dominating here, which allows room for more progressive small businesses in New Zealand to thrive.”

Coffee roasting in New Zealand

Thanks to this mindset of supporting local businesses, the business environment for smaller roasters is promising. New Zealand actually has more roasters per capita than any other country in the world.

As a part of this, more and more third wave roasters are opening, and the quality and sustainability of roasted coffee is starting to grow.

Phill says: “Small micro roasters are opening up around the country; businesses that care about selling good quality coffee that’s tasty, and care about having a better relationship with farmers.”

Sam agrees with him. He adds: “Here micro roasters have a broad focus on online retail. Many are offering light-roasted, single origin coffees which have good traceability. More consumers are starting to dabble in homebrewing, too.”

Some micro roasters, such as Dear Deer in Auckland, even allow customers to pick and blend coffee themselves. The customer can choose their roast profile, and the beans will be roasted on the spot. 

“With [things like] that comes more education and awareness from the consumer’s side,” Phill says. “More people are asking questions about where it’s coming from and how it’s being made.”

Dairy & plant milk

Sam notes that espresso-based milk beverages (such as the flat white) are still popular in New Zealand.

“Roasters develop coffees to optimise Maillard flavours that are the perfect concentration to dilute with milk via espresso,” he explains.  

Sean Tiernan is a home barista and the creator behind The Drumming Barista. He was the former head barista of Flight Coffee in Wellington, the country’s unofficial coffee capital. A trend he has noted is the exponential rise in alternative milk drinkers. 

“Consumers are becoming aware of the health benefits of plant-based milk, and also the environmental benefits,” he says. “Many are making the switch and drinking more plant milk-based coffees.”

He says that he has seen Kiwis going back and forth to cafés until they find what they believe is the perfect alternative milk for coffee. This trend has correspondingly been picked up by roasters in the country.

A few months ago, Plant Projects, a New Zealand plant milk coffee company, made headlines after announcing the launch of a new coffee blend, roasted specifically to be paired with dairy-free milks. The low-acidity espresso prevents any type of plant milk from curdling, and but the lightness of the roast retains the full flavour profile of the Colombian-Ethiopian blend. 

This is just one example of how the “supporting local” movement has continued. Many are shaping specialty coffee to best suit the local consumer palate. 

However, as well as roasters, baristas are taking proactive approaches to further enhance specialty coffee in New Zealand. 

Engagement, awareness, & information

One of the key characteristics of modern specialty coffee culture is a focus on education and awareness. For many baristas, the job is no longer about just selling coffee as a drink, but rather engaging the customer in a wider conversation about coffee. 

Daniel Ling is the Operations Manager of Red Rabbit Coffee. Red Rabbit only offers single origin coffees. 

“[This] allows us to begin a conversation with each customer,” Daniel explains. “We offer them a choice between origins; as part of our service, we tell them a little about the coffee they’re consuming that day, where it comes from, which flavours they can expect, and so on. 

“This way, it becomes part of that natural and daily conversation.”

In time, Daniel says customers start to appreciate coffee in a different way when they visit other shops or roasters.

As in key specialty coffee markets around the world, some baristas in New Zealand are looking for opportunities elevate and challenge the customer’s expectations. This, Daniel says, helps them learn more about coffee. 

For example, customers may order short macchiatos, but at Red Rabbit, they might not encourage it, depending on the coffee they’ve chosen..

Daniel adds: “We try to give them a little more information so they can make a more informed decision. Macchiatos are designed for dark Italian espresso. [The milk foam] cuts the bitterness of the strong espresso. 

“The coffee we would recommend for a macchiato is not predominantly bitter, but it contains quite a lot of acidity. However, when we add just a small amount of dairy, it can actually emphasise the acidic notes instead of muting the bitterness.” 

Daniel says that while customer freedom is important, he wants his customers to experience something they enjoy. For example, he suggests alternatives that the customer might like, and suggests what would taste best with their beans. 

“We want to be able to challenge [the customers] and ask them to trust us to make a coffee that is delicious.”

A focus on education

However, despite this focus on engagement and education within specialty coffee in New Zealand, it is still a small, niche market segment. As such, it can be difficult for everyday consumers to access.

All of my interviewees agree that more accessible education is the right direction for specialty coffee in New Zealand to move in.

“Hopefully, the specialty scene starts trending towards educating their customers more, and I feel like it is,” Phill says. “A lot of coffee companies are talking about what makes their coffee special.

“You can pick up a bag of coffee now from pretty much any specialty coffee roaster, see where it’s from, see the process; a lot of places even do little story blurbs about the farm it came from.”

Phill says that he hopes more people will start to understand, appreciate and value specialty coffee the way they do with wine and craft beer more widely across the country.

Daniel agrees. He says he’d like to see more education on how much work farmers, baristas and roasters are doing, so people are willing to pay more for better coffee, just as they do for alcohol. 

Thankfully, the New Zealand Specialty Coffee Association is doing what it can to move in this direction. Alongside specialty coffee shops across the country, it regularly organises latte art throwdowns, cupping sessions, and barista workshops. Most of these events are open to the public, with no prior experience in coffee needed to attend.

How should things change?

Sean says that going forward, he wants industry players in New Zealand to think of new, more effective ways to connect with consumers on a deeper level. This, he says, should be the case for both seasoned coffee lovers and newbies alike. 

He says social media will continue to become more and more prominent in the country’s coffee sector. “More people [are] working from home and enjoying coffee from home,” he says. “Brewing equipment sales have gone up, and coffee subscriptions have gone up. This is where social media has a big part to play. I strongly believe in it.” 

Sean also wants to encourage New Zealand’s coffee companies and professionals to create more fun, engaging and easy-to-understand content – like brewing guides, for instance. It’s crucial to make the more intimidating aspects of specialty coffee simpler and more approachable for everyone. 

New Zealand still has a lot of space for growth and improvement when it comes to specialty coffee. The scene, despite being small, is moving in the right direction.

Sam concludes: “We are adopting a lot of the right trends that are emerging from countries that have a significantly larger population.” 

Across the country’s coffee sector, there are widespread hopes that better quality coffee can become enjoyable and accessible for Kiwis across the country. In the future, many even hope that specialty coffee can become the industry standard for New Zealand’s consumers. Just how long this will take, however, remains to be seen.

You might enjoy reading about how to introduce customers to third wave coffee.

Photo credits: Sean Yew

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In recent years, New Orleans has also become home to a number of specialty coffee shops and micro roasters. While the city’s coffee traditions remain popular, there is evidence that the city’s coffee culture is open to some change.

To learn more, I spoke to some local experts. They told me about the contrast between traditional coffee culture and the rise of specialty coffee in the city. Read on to learn more about the Big Easy’s coffee scene.

You might also like our article on specialty coffee shops in Lisbon.

New Orleans: The coffee port

New Orleans is located near the mouth of the Mississippi River, making it a key international shipping port. For centuries, coffee has been a major import.

According to the Louisiana Department of Tourism, dozens of coffee importers have operated in the area as far back as the late nineteenth century. The coffee they imported was then shipped to roasters around the country, bridging the geographical gap between producing countries and the US.

Today, the Port of New Orleans is still one of the USA’s most important coffee importing hubs. It brings in hundreds of thousands of tonnes of coffee per year, and boasts millions of square feet of warehousing space for storing green coffee. There are even roasting facilities at the port itself.

The city has also historically been home to some major US coffee brand names, too. One of Folgers’ largest national coffee roasting facilities is located near the port, adding to the area’s coffee heritage. 

After more than a century of this kind of access to coffee, it’s no wonder that the city has such a rich coffee culture.

Classic coffee culture

The complex and diverse coffee traditions of New Orleans derive from the city’s status as a maritime trading hub.

Over the years, New Orleans welcomed merchants from all across the world, perhaps most prominently from Europe, Africa, and Asia. It’s no surprise that their traditions have since left their mark on the coffee.

Traditionally, dark roasted coffee has been popular in New Orleans. While it appeals to a large cross-section of coffee consumers by default, it is especially popular in the city as part of the classic New Orleans café au lait.

Café au lait is a classic French beverage, typically made with a 1:1 ratio of espresso to steamed milk. In New Orleans, you can find this type of beverage in some coffee shops, but the milk will often be just heated or scalded, rather than steamed.

However, older coffee shops will likely serve a unique style of café au lait – one made with espresso, milk, and chicory. 

While many associate the bitter, intense flavour of chicory with salads, the root of the chicory plant can actually be roasted, ground, and added to coffee. Roasted chicory root is bittersweet, and pairs well with dark roasted coffee.

This tradition can be traced back to French New Orleans, who used chicory root to bolster their coffee supplies during the naval blockades of the American Civil War. The habit of adding it to coffee has stayed with the city ever since.

However, this tradition is principally associated with one classic coffeehouse above all others: Café Du Monde.

The 150-year-old coffee shop is a great spot to enjoy a traditional cafe au lait with chicory. As with many other classic New Orleans coffee spots, Café Du Monde also sells beignets. These are square, fluffy donuts doused with powdered sugar, and they make a perfect sweet pairing with the traditional café au lait.

Beyond Café Du Mone, the classic chicory café au lait can be found in other coffee shops across New Orleans. In addition, grocery store shelves in the Big Easy are often lined with dark-roasted chicory coffee blends. 

Some local specialty coffee shops have even come to incorporate chicory into their menus, recognising the city’s unique coffee tradition.

The Big Easy today: Micro roasters & modern coffee culture

As with many other coffee consuming cities, specialty coffee shops and roasters have started to emerge across New Orleans in recent years.

Byron Gomez is a Louisiana native and the founder of Exile Coffee Roasters. He has worked in coffee for nearly a decade. When he initially discovered specialty coffee, he knew he wanted to bring it back to New Orleans.

“I wanted to share the things I learned with the place where I’m from…I wanted to keep pursuing coffee,” Byron says. “I saw that a three-dollar cup of coffee could have a global impact, and I thought that was really cool.” 

Byron spent years as a barista at a specialty coffee shop in the French Quarter, before finally starting his own roastery.

“New Orleans needs to be represented on the coffee map,” Byron adds. “When people think of New Orleans within the realm of coffee, I think specialty coffee needs to join the conversation. 

“Historically, so much coffee has come through our port, but sadly, today, precious little of it is specialty. I hope that changes.”

Even newer to the scene is Undergrowth Coffee, a queer-owned and run coffee shop that sees micro roasting as a tool for “socially equitable community building”. 

Undergrowth’s co-owner, Alyssa, explains that as a part of this, all the baristas at Undergrowth receive some level of roasting training.

She adds: “We wanted to give people an opportunity that they otherwise might not have had to get into coffee roasting, as it is such a niche industry.”

How is coffee culture changing in New Orleans?

To learn more about how things are changing, I spoke with Sarah Lambeth, the owner of Pretty Coffee Roasting. Sarah says that for positive change, it’s important to balance tradition and innovation.

“[For example], I have no qualms with chicory coffee,” Sarah says. “I would rather embrace it, personally. I even tried to make some syrups from chicory. I like the concept of keeping the chicory flavour for nostalgia.”

She says that at Pretty Coffee, they have focused on omni roasting, making sure they get the best out of each coffee they buy.

She says: “It’s a balance. I want [our coffees] to be versatile. I try to get the coffees to show themselves off. Attention to detail, quality; these are things that are very important to me in my business.”

Alyssa, however, says that customers in New Orleans have a certain expectation for darker roasted coffee. 

“We primarily focus on city/medium roasts,” she says. “We don’t do [loads of full] dark roasting at this point, which is counter-intuitive as far as New Orleans coffee culture is concerned.

“The belief is that [medium roasts] are a much easier learning opportunity for the baristas.”

Alyssa also notes that Undergrowth does listen to its customers and the wider New Orleans coffee community. If something doesn’t work for customers, she says they address it.

She says: “Being such a micro roaster has worked out for us because we can tweak things as we need to, basically in the moment.”

In contrast to Alyssa and Sarah, Byron says Exile is “all about” specialty coffee. He tells me that he looks for unique coffees that are “hyper traceable with interesting stories and interesting characteristics”.

“I’m not adding anything to [the coffee],” he says. “My job is just to make it soluble so you can drink it and so you can taste the work that was put into it at the farm. My job is to just tell the story.”

Visiting New Orleans?

Here is a small list of recommended specialty coffee shops, should you decide to explore New Orleans’ coffee culture.

Cafe Du Monde is a must for tourists looking to sample a “classic” café au lait. Try their chicory coffee and beignets (which come in orders of three).

Spitfire Coffee in the heart of the French Quarter. They serve coffee from Exile, among other local roasters.

Bearcat Café serves amazing breakfast and lunch food, and has a great coffee program with Alinea Coffee Roasters, another local micro roaster.

Old Road Coffee is located in a charming little neighborhood, and slightly off the beaten track. However, it works with multiple local roasters to feature a range of different coffees.

What does the future hold for the New Orleans coffee scene?

It’s safe to say that people will always want to enjoy a beignet with a chicory café au lait in the French Quarter. These are rich, historic parts of New Orleans’ coffee culture, and it seems they’re here to stay. 

But what will change in the future?

“I’m not satisfied yet, but I’m excited,” Byron says. “I feel like the page is turning a little bit. I feel like there is a new wave of young entrepreneurs in New Orleans, all trying to do their own thing. 

“I personally have this dream of making coffee in New Orleans more accessible. I want to operate a shared café and roasting space, and invite people to do their own thing, with lower risks and lower startup costs.”

Ultimately, Byron says that the New Orleans coffee scene is at an interesting juncture. He sees change in the city’s coffee culture, even if it is slow, but notes that this could be an example for other cities across the US to follow.

New Orleans has a rich coffee heritage, steeped in traditions that are centuries old. But while the chicory café au lait and beignets remain popular, specialty coffee culture is starting to emerge across the city. Ultimately, this means that there’s something for every kind of coffee drinker to enjoy, no matter what they like.

Between the large historic businesses operating near the port, and the younger start-ups seeking to source and roast high-scoring coffees, there is clearly a balance of tradition and innovation in the city, just as Sarah says. Whether or not this balance will continue in the years to come, however, remains to be seen.

Enjoyed this? Then read our article on the unique relationship between coffee and doughnuts.

Photo credits: Dominic Vittitow, Exile Coffee Roasters, Park Island Coffee Roasters

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Across Singapore, people have long since enjoyed sharing a cup of coffee with friends, traditionally drinking intense, sweet robusta blends from the comfort of a kopitiam. Today, however, as with many major coffee consuming markets, quality is increasing across Singapore, and specialty coffee shops are opening across the island.

But where does this coffee culture come from? And where is it headed? To learn more, I spoke to three Singaporean coffee professionals. Read on to find out what they told me about the past, present, and future of the country’s coffee culture.

You might also like our guide to green coffee auctions.

A history of coffee in Singapore

The origins of Singaporean coffee culture are complex, and can be traced all over the world, thanks to the island’s rich and unique trade history. As a trade hub and free port in maritime Southeast Asia, Singapore (and its coffee culture) has been influenced by travellers and merchants from around the world for hundreds of years. 

The history of coffee in Singapore traces back to when the first kopitiams were opened in the 19th century by the Chinese. These were established to meet the demand for European immigrants on the island, who needed their caffeine fix to get through the day. 

Kopitiams still exist in Singapore to this day as traditional alternatives to chain coffee shops. The name comes from kopi, Malay for coffee, while tiam is the Hokkien and Fujianese word for shop.

In kopitiams, the coffee served (often robusta) is roasted and with sugar and butter or margarine, to provide a buttery caramel flavour. Many kopitiams also roast their own coffee, using beans imported from countries in Southeast Asia (such as Indonesia).

Kopitiam coffee, known as kopi, is brewed as a concentrated, thick beverage that serves the base of other drinks. When ordering coffee in a kopitiam, you pick from a range of options to add to your kopi, often masking the intense flavour with condensed milk and sugar. Some even claim that there are over 100 different ways to serve a cup of kopi.

Fadhly Effandi is the Head of Specialty at Bero Coffee, a green coffee importer in Singapore. He confirms the importance of this ancient coffee tradition. 

“Traditional ‘kopi’ plays an important role in the historical identity of coffee among Singaporeans,” he says. “I feel that this culture will not disappear anytime soon. 

“The term la kopi comes from a time where a coffee break typically involved a group of friends. They would purposefully head out to a preferred local coffee shop for a cup (or two) of kopi.”

However, he says that this culture of taking a coffee break has helped popularise modern coffee trends. 

“This culture, in turn, fuels the Singaporean specialty coffee industry in a modern context,” Fadhly tells me. “The spirit of taking a coffee break shifts from having a cuppa in a local kopitiam, and becomes inherited by the specialty coffee shop.” 

Today, Singapore plays a key role in the international coffee trade (especially in Asia), and its coffee culture has clearly been influenced by its rich history as a hub of maritime commerce.

Fadhly describes coffee as a “beverage of choice” for Singaporean consumers, and notes that it has “become an important platform for social interactions”.

“It is affordable and accessible,” he adds. “For the typical working adult, which makes up the majority of the population in Singapore, a coffee break in a workday is an activity that you look forward to on a daily basis.” 

Singapore’s growing specialty coffee market

Today, Singapore consumes around 15,000 metric tonnes of coffee a year. Divided by its population of 5.7 million, this works out at around 2.6kg per capita.

Victor Mah is the President of the Singapore Coffee Association and the ASEAN Coffee Federation. He explains that coffee consumption has increased notably in the last decade, and says that there has been a growth in specialty coffee, especially in the last three years.

Many of the coffee trends that have come to Singapore have been “imported” by passionate locals or expats who have travelled or lived abroad, where they learned about specialty coffee. 

Over the past ten years, more and more independent specialty coffee roasters and shops have popped up across the island. They are increasingly frequented by younger coffee consumers in search of high-quality coffee made from traceable beans. A strong brand identity is also high on the agenda.

“Consumers are more aware of the passion and craft that goes behind every cup of coffee,” Fadhly tells me. 

He also notes that the pandemic has had an impact, as it has led to more people working from home and “a trend of deeper exploration and appreciation for coffee”.

Marcus Foo is the CEO of PPP Coffee, a specialty coffee roaster based in Singapore. He explains that lighter roasts have become more popular in Singapore over the last few years because more people have started to drink more and more manual brewed filter coffees. He also notes that plant-based milk alternatives, like soy, almond, and oat milk, are also popular.

Marcus adds: “African coffees from Ethiopia and Kenya have always been popular due to their unique floral and fruity characteristics, [and natural processed coffees are getting more popular].”

However, he also acknowledges that coffees grown in Asia have also been getting more attention, especially from countries like Indonesia, Myanmar, Laos, and India. 

Finally, Marcus notes that convenience is a growing priority for coffee consumers across the island. According to him, ready-to-drink (RTD) products like cold brew are becoming more popular, as are drip coffee bags and coffee capsules. He says that some (but not all) of these are prepared with specialty-grade beans.

Singapore: A trade hub for coffee

Singapore also holds an important role as a trade hub in the coffee sector. It is a free port which has free trade agreements with 26 different countries and blocs. Around 50,000 international brands have a presence on the island.

Altogether, this means that Singapore is an ideal link between major coffee producing and coffee consuming markets – both in Asia and further afield.

“Singapore is a huge transhipment coffee centre for the whole Asia-Pacific region,” Victor explains. “[This is because of its] free trade status, banking and insurance facilities, [nature as a] logistics hub, excellent port and air cargo facilities, and the presence of international coffee traders.” 

Victor adds that the two main trading partners (in terms of coffee production) are Indonesia and Vietnam. However, he also acknowledges that coffee trade with Latin America has increased in the last couple of years. 

“As a trading hub, Singapore is able to enhance the specialty coffee sector in the whole Asia Pacific,” he says.

Steven Tan is the Executive Director of the Singapore Coffee Association. “Singapore has excellent [transport] connectivity on an international scale by both air and sea,” he says. “There are also robust financial systems that support the coffee trade in the country. 

“It also has a great number of free trade agreements with many different nations and markets. This facilitates easier trade and business across borders.

“Furthermore, the growth of the specialty coffee segment in Southeast Asia is gaining attention on a global scale. With 655 million people, a vast majority of which are 40 or younger, the region is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.”

Growing Singapore’s presence in the international market

On July 13, 2021, the Singapore Coffee Association hosted the first Singapore International Coffee Convention (SICC) and the Singapore Specialty Coffee (Micro-Lot) Auction 2021. 

This hybrid event was open to participants all over the world (online) as well as some key stakeholders in person in Singapore.

It featured speakers from several Asian and Latin American countries, and welcomed more than 1,000 attendees in person – over 100 in person, and more than 900 online.

Steven tells me that the main goal of the auction was “to establish Singapore as a centre for coffee quality excellence”.

“[We wanted] to promote Singapore as a trade hub for specialty coffee, and facilitate market access, allowing coffee producers to access Singapore and therefore the [growing] coffee market in Southeast Asia.” 

At the same time, Steven says the event helped Singaporean coffee traders and roasters access origins that have historically been harder to reach – even more so during the pandemic. 

He says: “The range of coffee at the auction helped to better educate the industry players in Singapore and develop coffee culture [here].” 

Steven says the auction offered lots from around the world, from India and Indonesia to Colombia and Costa Rica. In total, 38 of the 58 lots on offer were auctioned; the highlight was Lot 46, a Panama Geisha from Finca Santa Teresa which sold for US $77/kg.

Singapore’s coffee culture is exciting, no matter who you are or what your background is. Its rich history as a maritime trade hub means there is something for everyone, and the coffee culture in the city-state continues to be strong. 

Ultimately, Singapore has and will continue to play an important role in the global coffee sector. As a trade hub in Southeast Asia, it will continue to be a gateway for the growing coffee market in the region, especially for green coffee importers and exporters. Trade volumes are almost guaranteed to increase.

Going forward, Steven says that Singapore must focus on one thing: forming a bridge between coffee production in Asia and Latin America. 

“Southeast Asia is one of the largest coffee-producing regions in the world,” he says. “[By joining these regions], we can support collaboration on market access and share knowledge on coffee production and industry farming practices, thereby leveraging each others’ strengths.” 

Enjoyed this? Then read our article on how coffee auctions can support direct trade relationships.

Photo credits: Singapore Coffee Association

Please note: Singapore Coffee Association is a sponsor of Perfect Daily Grind.

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In recent years, it has enjoyed a reputation for having some of the world’s most well-known roasters, baristas, and cafes, as well as a number of successful champions on world competition stages. 

This has been recognised by the global coffee industry, too. Around the world, “Australian-style” coffee and food service has started to become more prominent, with brunch, specialty coffee, and healthy food just some of the key traits that characterise the trend.

But what’s happening in Australian coffee today? And how are things changing? To learn more, I spoke to several Australian coffee professionals to find out how specialty coffee culture is developing throughout the country, and why the country is so renowned for it. Read on to find out what they said.

You might also like our coffee shop tour of Melbourne.

Specialty coffee: An industry standard 

Despite the fact that the country is renowned today for its coffee culture, coffee didn’t really become prominent in Australia until the mid-20th century. The country’s coffee sector largely developed thanks to the influence of Italian and Greek immigrants, many of whom moved there after the Second World War. 

The Greeks and Italians brought their love of espresso and traditional coffee brewing methods with them, and the rest was history. Their influence was particularly strong in larger Australian cities, including Melbourne, which has a reputation as one of the country’s “coffee capitals” to this day. 

It’s important to note that the modern Australian coffee sector is characteristically different to most other consuming markets. In most major coffee consuming countries around the world, independent specialty and third wave coffee businesses have something of a minor presence, and are often overshadowed by larger franchise operators.

However, in Australia, global chains such as Starbucks have famously failed to succeed in the Australian market. As such, the industry is dominated by smaller independents and boutique coffee shops. But even for these businesses, coffee is changing.

Hany Ezzat is a barista and competitor who has worked in the Australian specialty coffee sector for more than a decade. He has seen first-hand how Australian coffee culture has changed and developed in recent years.

“Machine automation has allowed baristas to take more time to focus on post-extraction variables and education for consumers,” he explains. “Experiences like tasting cards with farm information and coffees being served in different vessels to highlight different ‘elements’ are becoming more common.”

Hany adds that many roasters are now roasting coffees with specific uses in mind (i.e. milk-based drinks, espresso, and filter), and taking care to include brewing guides and traceability information. He also notes that many cafes are also abandoning traditional coffee “menus” in favour of giving customers more information about what they can expect to taste.

“Customers are becoming more used to ordering different blends and origins based on what style of coffee they like, instead of deciding whether they want a flat white or cappuccino,” he explains. 

“With these menus, the focus is much more on the origin, roast, and flavour profile of the coffee, rather than the amount of milk or the cup it is served in.”

Moving beyond specialty?

There’s no doubt that terminology like “specialty” and “third wave” are increasingly being used by coffee businesses around the world to differentiate themselves from larger chains in a saturated market. But in Australia, where chains are arguably less prominent, does this mean they’re starting to lose their significance?

Tom Beaumont is the General Manager of ONA Coffee, and has worked in the Australian coffee industry for several decades in roasting, equipment, and retail. 

He tells me that the number of businesses identifying as “specialty” is causing the term to lose its importance, and that many who use these terms are starting to splinter into different factions. 

“The concept of specialty is almost just like a standard [in Australia],” he says. “In a way, it has almost kind of lost its meaning, because everything is specialty.”

As such, Tom says that many prominent coffee businesses in Australia are now seeking to take a step beyond concepts like “third wave” and “specialty”, to take the preparation and service of coffee to new heights.

“I feel now in recent years, there has almost been a kind of specialty coffee ‘split’, as more businesses try to carve out what the next experience is,” he adds. “There are more roasters and baristas thinking ‘what is the next level of taste?’ and ‘can I be a bit more daring?’

“There’s a lot of experimentation [and] innovation. There’s a lot of suggestive ways of drinking and different ways to drink. It’s a smaller space [to work in], but I think that from a consumer end, that’s starting to get a little stronger now.”

New styles of service 

In line with what Tom notes, many coffee shops in Australia are now offering new and unusual approaches to serving coffee. These include extended menus of frozen, limited edition, and “reserve” coffees. 

Freezing whole coffee beans has become especially popular, as it allows baristas to slow down the ageing process of the coffee, keeping it ideal for use for longer periods of time.

In particular, businesses like ONA Coffee Sydney have become well-known for their extensive menus of frozen coffee beans, while Sydney roaster Toby’s Estate followed this trend with the release of their “Freezus” domestic coffee freezing pack in 2020.

These trends are supporting Australian roasters to bring more high-quality, experimental, and unique flavour profiles to consumers. Rather offering different styles of coffee (such as a flat white or latte) some coffee shop menus in Australia today read more like a wine menu, with harvest year, processing information, and tasting notes all commonly included.

Oliver James is a coffee competition judge and the owner of Tattooed Sailor Coffee Roasters in Cairns. He says that the emergence of these new service styles has been influenced in no small part by barista competitions.

He says: “I’ve noticed a direct correlation between the flavour profile of coffee served at barista competitions, particularly in finals rounds, and the flavour profiles or trends emerging in specialty coffee shops.

“I think the science of making espresso is broadly known and understood [now], and I can see firsthand that competitions are really driving many of these changes.”

Coffee prices and consumption

Along with these innovations and new methods of serving coffee, the Australian coffee market has seen widespread price increases, particularly for the consumer. 

In 2017, reports showed that the average price of a cup of coffee in Australia had increased from A$3.50 in 2014 to A$4.10 – a 17% spike in just three years. 

However, in the past four or five years, some changes have been even more dramatic. When ONA Coffee Sydney first launched their “reserve” menu of frozen coffees in 2018, many people were shocked at the presence of a A$16 filter coffee on the board. 

Just three years later, a Melbourne coffee shop has made headlines for serving a A$200 cup of coffee.

However, Hany says that the increases and greater variation in pricing has by no means been negatively received. 

“Consumers have become more willing to spend more on higher-end coffees and coffee experiences, like frozen and ‘reserve coffee’ menus,” he explains.

“I believe the industry is headed in the right direction, [and] I hope to see the average price of coffee rise in Australia in the future, to benefit all parts of the supply chain.”

Oliver notes that this hasn’t just been down to increased quality, however; it can also be attributed to a more educated average consumer.

“Customers are much more educated [than before],” he says. “They are curious about origins, and generally know if they prefer fruity, nutty or chocolaty flavour profiles, for instance.

“Many also know about origins and their flavour profiles, and are willing to pay higher prices for better quality espresso or beans to take home.”

Embracing new ideas

Despite the fact that Australian coffee culture was born just a few decades ago from existing habits brought over by European migrants, it is now at the forefront of specialty coffee consumption. Today, Australian coffee shops and roasters continue to push boundaries and innovate. 

However, Oliver explains that this relative youth and a lack of any traditional coffee culture is precisely why innovation is so warmly welcomed.

He says: “I think Australian coffee culture is generally more open and excited for new ideas, and happy to trial equipment, methods or ideologies.

“Australian [coffee] culture is less dictated by our maintaining historical ideas or ways of doing things in the wider industry.”

Hany mirrors this, reflecting on the receptive nature of the Australian coffee consumer.

“I see our community as very open-minded people,” he says. “[They are] pushing boundaries and [have a] willingness to adapt in search of a better cup.”

Thanks to its ever-evolving coffee culture and a range of emerging, innovative ways to serve coffee, Australia seems set to maintain its reputation as a leading force in specialty coffee.

However, with the rise of other consuming markets in Asia and the Middle East, and a wider growing obsession with experimental and high-scoring coffees, it could well face strong competition in the not-so-distant future.

Enjoyed this? Then you might like our article on the flat white and how it’s different to a latte.

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Photo credits: Rowan Marsh-Croft, Jordan Montgomery, Samuel Yap

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