Britons drank some 2.098 billion cups of coffee away from home in the year ending December 2015, up 4.3% or 87 million more than year end December 2014.
By comparison, consumers drank 874 million cups of tea in the same period, down by 1.8%. Tea consumption is nearly 19% down on 2010 and for every cup of tea we now consumer around two and half cups of coffee.
Muriel Illig, account manager at the NPD Group, said: “There’s no quenching our thirst for the three most popular speciality coffees – Cappuccino, Latte and Americano – and those three account for around two-thirds of all the coffee we buy away from home.
“In Britain, we love coffee when we are on the go. But as coffee climbs then tea is teetering – it really needs to fight back. The share of tea in a country famed for its love of this beverage has slipped significantly and the thirst for speciality coffees completely swamps demand for speciality teas.”
The information released also finds that Brits are buying coffee when they stop to fill up their cars. Nearly 17 million cups of coffee were bought at petrol stations in 2015, 5 million more than 2012.
Britain’s biggest-selling speciality coffee is still the Cappuccino with 486 million servings consumed in 2015, up by 12% since 2012. Latte servings were 467 million in 2015, up 6% on 2012, while Americano servings were lower at 431 million but seeing much faster growth at 33% above 2012.
Two other speciality coffees seeing fast growth are Espresso, up some 31% over the same period with 99 million servings in 2015 while the increase for Mocha is 29% up since 2012 with 55 million servings last year. Servings of traditional coffee are down by 20% since 2012.