12 Top Coffee Trends for 2024
1/ Single Origin & Premium Coffee
We expect to see a continued interest in premium quality coffee in 2024, which has been popular bit, but the market isn’t showing any signs of slowing down, even with the current cost of living crisis. Coffee aficionados going out of their way to find premium quality coffees and are searching for the best they can find, and small batch single origin coffees that are sustainably sourced, with a great back story, and distinctive flavour profile are front and centre. We expect to see an increase in diverse blends catering to specific tastes, from single-origin beans to coffees infused with locally sourced ingredients like lavender and rum. Specialty coffee has potential to take centre stage and continue to push the boundaries when it comes to quality and creativity.
2/ Sustainability
Is going to be front and centre and pretty much at the top of the agenda when it comes to coffee production, especially as already many of us are concerned about the provenance and origin of our food and drink. Something that’s especially true when it comes to the coffee we drink too. We want to know where it’s comes from, how it’s been grown, how it’s harvested, if the growers are paid a fair price, and if the whole process is done sustainably with minimal impact on local environments and above all the planet as a whole. Stringent legislation like the European Green Deal which introduces changes aiming for climate neutrality by 2050. Regulations like the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the EU Deforestation Regulation will tackle specifically biodiversity loss and help reduce emissions. The simple fact of the matter is that coffee drinkers don’t just want their coffee to be packaged sustainably, they also want it to be sustainably grown, processed and sourced too.
3/ Healthy Coffee
Healthy coffees are set to maintain their position as a major trend for 2024, especially as the interest continues to grow in reducing dietary fat intake and increasing overall health, particularly through boosting the body’s gut health and immune response. Thankfully, as a fermented food coffee ticks that box pretty much, but that’s only when it’s drunk black or with plant-based milks. Expect to see coffee alternatives like matcha, chicory root and mushroom come to the fore as they gain further traction in the market.
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4/ Functional Coffees
With more and more people interested in their health, functional coffee has emerged as a major trend. It fuses wellness with people’s daily coffee ritual, ticking both boxes.. Beyond caffeine, added ingredients like adaptogens, collagen, CBD oil, and superfoods promise wellness benefits is spurring entire categories including:
Performance coffee, which contains added superfoods to help you perform at your best, including Turmeric, Ginseng, MCT oil and Black Pepper. Designed to support vitality, longevity and clarity.
Collagen coffee is brim full of packed full of Biotin, Collagen and Silica. Designed to help promote healthy skin, hair and nails.
Thermo coffee contains ingredients like L-Carnitine, L-Tyrosine, Green Tea and Lean GBB and is designed to help you focus, shred and energise during training.
Decaf adrenal coffee contains nifty things like zinc and magnesium to encourage your body and to relax and reset.
5/ Adaptogens:
Scientific research has shown that adaptogens can play a role in helping to improve mental clarity, motivation, memory, as well improving overall mood. Some of the most notable formats include; Ginseng, Goji Berry, Liquorice Root, Holy Basil, Turmeric, and Maca Root, which have already begun to appear as coffee additives and once celebs get the inside line will only grow in popularity…
6/ Flavoured Coffee
Flavoured speciality coffees are witnessing a huge surge in popularity, with a wide array of options such as vanilla, caramel, hazelnut, and chocolate coming to the market. Flavoured coffee is nothing new, several cultures in the Middle East have been flavouring coffee with spices for hundreds of years. The process is no more complex than it sounds, essentially beans that have been infused with different flavours. Despite being around for quite a while, it wasn’t until the 1990s that they really started to become popular, particularly as the process of infusing using new technology and advanced flavour oils including the likes of hazelnut flavoured coffee beans, alongside other favourites such as chocolate and fig.
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7/ Barrel Aged Coffee
Barrel aged coffee is another form of flavoured coffee. Basically it involves putting green coffee inside wooden barrels for two to three weeks, which have previously been used to make or store drinks such as whisky, wine, bourbon, rum, sherry, port and so on. The wood having previously taken on the characteristics of the beverage being stored in turn transfers those characteristics into the green coffee beans which are then in turned stored in the barrels. Barrel aged coffee, like barrel aged spirits, enhances the flavour and intensifies the different notes and subtleties of each bean variety, delivering bringing out unique flavour profiles and tasting notes.
8/ Snap Chilled Coffee
Freshness is key and you can’t get any fresher than Snap chilling. As a process rapidly replacing cold brewed coffee, and that’s no real surprise, especially because snap chilled coffee takes a less time to create than cold brew versions and it has way more flavour too because it rapidly cools the coffee keeping most of the aroma and the flavour, which tends to get lost with cold brewing. Not only that it’s also a much better alternative to iced coffee, mainly because you don’t need to faff about with bits of ice, which when it thaws simply dilutes your coffee even more.
9/ Coffee Mocktails & Zero Proof Drinks
According to few trend setters coffee beverages are becoming a staple of trendy bars dotted around the globe as there’s a steady decline in the number of people who drink – current research indicates 43% of the world’s population doesn’t indulge and many more are choosing to enjoy healthy alternatives. Coffee in its various formats provides bartenders with a number of possibilities and the only thing limiting their non-alcoholic cocktail creations is their individual imaginations.
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10/ Canned & Bottled Coffee
Canned and bottled coffees are now a thing in what’s called the grab and go space, especially seeing as there’s no extra costs involved for retailers who can just simply add them to their existing chilled or vending machine store options, so expect them to keep on growing, especially as healthy formats are canned too, which will inevitably appeal to a wide range of age groups.
11/ Coffee Tourism
We’ve mentioned this before, but the reality is it’s happening and coffee tourism is becoming a thing, especially now that we are back to some semblance of normality because we can travel. Which means coffee drinkers the world over have dusted down their passports and are once again looking for totally authentic experiences in unique coffee growing and harvesting settings around the world, very much like the farm-to-fork movement, alongside that people are also looking to learn too and are seeking out educational coffee experiences centred around their specific coffee experience environment, be that their local coffee shop or their coffee supplier.
12/ Plant-Based Milks
Coffee made with plant-based milks have become increasingly popular, especially as people seek to replace animal derived milks and creams in their diet. This increasing trend has come as a direct result of raised levels of awareness in relation to health and well-being as people change their dietary habits and become either vegetarian of vegan. So keep an eye on out as more and more milk alternatives become available alongside more established plant-based milk derivatives such as nut, soy, almond and coconut.
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