5 Stats That Show Millennials' Crazy Love for Coffee

They're pushing global demand to outpace production
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 1, 2016 8:49 AM CDT
5 Stats That Show Millennials' Crazy Love for Coffee
Savor it while you can.   (AP Photo/Jens Meyer)

America is the world's No. 1 coffee consumer, and demand here is set to hit an all-time high—even as the percentage of those over 40 who drink it daily has narrowed over the past eight years. How is that possible? Credit the millennial, whom Bloomberg paints a picture of in five telling stats:

  1. Millennials—that would be 19- to 34-year-olds—now represent about 44% of America's coffee demand.
  2. Some 48% of Americans ages 18 to 24 now drink coffee daily, up from 34% in 2008.
  3. Coffee consumption is even more pervasive among the group that includes older millennials: 60% of those ages 25 to 39 drink it daily, up from 51%.
  4. Older millennials, meaning those born around 1982, started consuming coffee at an average age of 17.1 years.
  5. Millennials born after 1995 started much earlier: 14.7 years.

Global consumption has outstripped production for two years running, and demand is growing at about 1.5% per year, reports the Washington Post. (The silver lining: As of July, the US stockpile of unroasted coffee beans was greater than at any other time since 2000.) Consumption among millennials "is growing faster than any other segment," a National Coffee Association rep tells Mashable. But a commodities analyst doesn't specifically cite US millennials in the two reasons he gives for the rise in demand: "the expansion of coffee shops and capsule systems" and an urban migration in places like China that's exposing more people to coffee. Bloomberg also calls out China, where it sees the millennial trend at play. (Here's why you shouldn't drink coffee after a concert.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X