Coffee is the second most important commodity in the world, behind only oil. Where oil greases the wheels of human civilization, coffee surely lubricates its living, breathing, moving parts.
The world consumes 400 billion cups of coffee a year, with 196 billion of those cups consumed in the U.S. This amounts to roughly 400 million cups of coffee consumed per day in the U.S., or about three cups per person.
On Jan. 1, 2023, a pound of coffee cost $1.67. By year-end, the price had skyrocketed to $3.20 a pound. The cost of the most common bean, Arabica, saw a 70% increase over the year.
The increase in restaurant prices kept many people at home for dinner. But the increase in the price of a cup of coffee didn't faze coffee snobs and casual drinkers alike.
“Coffee has helped create exactly the kind of world that coffee needs to thrive,” wrote Michael Pollan in an Atlantic article in 2020. That world is one of felicity and accommodation in interpersonal relations, that coffee facilitates millions of times every day.
Coffee had an inauspicious beginning. It was one of the last plants to be domesticated. While humans have grown wheat since 10,000 BC, coffee has been grown as a domesticated plant only since about 1100 AD, when the Arabs began growing it. For 300 years, the Arabs kept a tight hold on the berries, making it a capital crime to take them out of the country.
The Turks tried the first concoction of smashed coffee beans boiled in water, adding anise or cardamom (they didn't know any better). The first coffee shops opened in Constantinople around 1475, and spread like wildfire across Europe, jumping the Bosphorus and landing in Vienna around 1645.
The first coffee shops were places of debauchery, as well as revolutionary thinking. English coffee shops hosted the finest minds of the pre-enlightenment, and can be credited in no small way with facilitating the spread of radical democratic ideas. King Charles II tried to shut them down several times, lest the "infection" spread.
The French brought coffee bushes to the New World, where the soil and climate proved to be perfect for growing some of the finest coffees in the world.
Coffee appeared in Brazil in 1727; by 1800, most of Central and South America was growing the bush. The world's craving for coffee continues to grow, and today, it's the third most popular beverage in the world, next to water and tea.
In December, coffee hit its highest price in nearly 50 years. Major droughts in coffee-growing areas such as Brazil meant that the cost of Arabica beans (a common variety served in the United States) went up about 70 percent in 2024. The price has eased slightly in recent weeks, from $3.35 a pound to $3.20 a pound, but it was closer to $1.80 this time last year. Store brands such as Nescafé and Folgers have raised their prices, pointing to bean costs. In 2025, coffee shops will need to decide how much of the expense to pass on to coffee drinkers. With all of the resources and labor that go into it, a cup of coffee arguably should cost more than what we pay for it now. If coffee prices keep rising, coffee enthusiasts may be forced to consider how much their daily ritual is truly worth.
Although I am a coffee snob, I understand I live in a world where coffee lovers come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and preferences for additives.
According to Vending Market Watch, 38% of coffee drinkers add sugar; 77% add creamer or milk. Only 18% of people prefer to drink their coffee black, which is a 56% decrease from 2022.
No matter how you drink it, what you add to it, how you prepare it, or how you present it, coffee has greased the skids of social interaction for more than 500 years. More than any other beverage, it appears to have been placed on Earth to facilitate stimulating conversation and promote comity. More than anything, coffee was created to be consumed with others.
The world would be a much different place without coffee. It would undoubtedly be a much sleepier world, that's for sure.
