23 Aug The caffeine boom
Briton’s now spend more on coffee in a year than they do on their energy bills – and as the price of beans rises, the responce has to be ever more fussy about coffee options. The story’s the same the world round, it would appear….
Writing in The Independent, John Walsh asserts that the British are now drinking coffee as never before.
“Every week, across the UK, we consume 511 millions cups of coffee – almost half of them in the franchises that dominate the nation’s high streets and shopping malls.
“A few years ago, Starbucks ran a TV commercial that encouraged coffee-lovers to think of their high street outlets as a second home – somewhere to relax, read the papers, meet your partner or write a novel on your Vaio laptop. Now the coffee lover has a second, third and fourth home in which to kick back. If Starbucks loses its charm, he can transfer his laid-back allegiance to Caffè Concerto, Caffè Nero, Costa Coffee, Coffee Republic or Caffè Ritazza.
“How did we become so enslaved? We all know people who proclaim that they cannot face the world, cannot think straight, cannot recognise elementary shapes, simply cannot operate until they’ve had their first hit of Taylor’s Rich Italian Dark Roast in the morning. We’re used to seeing the Starbucks Claw phenomenon – the hand of an otherwise ordinary-seeming mortal, clutched around a carton of skinny latte (or whatever) as he or she wanders dazedly down the street, like a large baby unable to leave off sucking a teat.
“Why do we queue at Starbucks for hot milky drinks which have only traces of caffeine in them? Because we’re addicted to the whole procedure behind the Costa bar; the steaming, the percolating, the drip-feed of richness, the warm milky smoothness of the result, the fugitive aromas of vanilla, caramel, honey, nuts and chocolate. Like the Lotos-eaters in Homer’s Odyssey, we enter an altered, milk-fed state, forgetful of friends, home and all sense of urgency.
“And we seem to be heedless of its alarming cost. According to research, coffee gourmets spend £2,000 a year on the stuff, while merely everyday drinkers spend £450 a year – more than they shell out on the average person’s domestic electricity bill…..
“Last year, global consumption went up by 2.5 per cent. It can only increase further, because of a crucial change in the world coffee market: China and India have woken up and sniffed the Java. The number of coffee houses in China will triple in the next three years. Tea consumption in India has declined ever since the subcontinent’s population discovered the lure of the bean, the roast and the cafetière.
“As demand rises, traditional suppliers in Brazil and Columbia will struggle to match it – and the price to the coffee shops will consequently rise and rise. The Costas and Starbucks which buy the beans won’t be able to maintain their old prices without cutting into their profits, so the cost to coffee drinkers will rise exponentially. We will, in other words, pay much more for our caffeine-based addiction in the future. And will we cut down on our coffee consumption? Will we hell.
The other trend will fit in nicely. It’s a new culture of coffee sophistication that’s now commonplace in America and will be joining us shortly. From New York to Los Angeles, there’s a new breed of coffee snob, who looks with disdain on “foamed-milk beverages” and aspires to being a connoisseur of Pure Coffee……”
The Independent: Read the full article