We have always said the specialty coffee is the direction the industry is going. The coffee in the can may sound good when you open it but it just does not cut it when you get it into a cup.

From the Daily Coffee News:coffee_cup_of_coffee_drinking

U.S. consumers are gradually ditching “non-gourmet” coffee in favor of more specialty coffee and espresso-based drinks, according to the National Coffee Association‘s most recent annual consumer report.

Each year, the NCA gets a hold of about 3,000 U.S. consumers of ages and ethnicities in proportion with U.S. population data. The longest running study of its kind for the industry, the National Coffee Drinking Trends (NCDT) study provides a wide-angle view of consumer trends, something that can get lost in the “specialty” bubble.

We still call it specialty coffee, but how is gourmet coffee defined?

As for what constitutes “gourmet” in the the 2014 study, the NCA gives us only the following: “Gourmet coffee beverages consist of espresso-based beverages and regular coffee made with gourmet coffee beans.” Looking at the NCA’s numbers, it appears for the purposes of this study that “gourmet” covers essentially any arabica coffee products, pods included, as well as any retail espresso drinks.

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