Coffee has never been hotter, even when it's cold
From a hot cup of coffee in the morning to cold brew any time, coffee culture has changed in the past few decades.
Two companies that have seen it all are marking major anniversaries this week.
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf was founded in Brentwood in 1963, eight years ahead of coffee giant Starbucks, which opened its first store in Seattle's Pike Place Market in 1971.
“In the coffee category, that's a big deal. I don't think many of our competitors have been around for 60 years,” Dee Hadley, Coffee Bean's head of marketing for the Americas, said in a phone interview.
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf says it invented ice-blended drinks at its Westwood shop in 1987 and launched chai tea latte in 1998. It has more than 1,100 stores worldwide, with a heavy concentration in Asia, and nearly 200 in the United States.
In an anniversary promotion, people who use the company's app today will be automatically entered into a contest to win daily coffee drinks for a year. Those dates are National Coffee Day and International Coffee Day, respectively.
Klatch Coffee is marking its 30th anniversary. It was started in Rancho Cucamonga in 1993 by Mike and Cindy Perry and has seven shops in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. It is marking the anniversary today with events including a barista competition in Pasadena and highend coffee tastings in Rancho Cucamonga.
Giving coffee drinkers a superior product in new and appealing ways is the future for both companies, according to executives.
Some like it cold
Americans are highly caffeinated. They drink 2.8 cups of coffee a day, according to the National Coffee Association's trends report for fall 2023. In a week, 61% of Americans have traditional coffee and 53% have specialty coffee, with latte, espresso and cappuccino being the leading choices.
Cold brew is the hot trend. The process involves seeping coffee grounds in cold water for many hours instead of hot water for a few minutes, resulting in a smoother-tasting beverage that is served over ice.
Consumption of iced coffee is up 64% since January, according to the report, and 60% of customers drink it regularly.
With more coffee shops and restaurants doing cold brew, the ways to serve it have exploded. Starbucks infuses it with nitrogen to create Nitro Cold Brew to give it a “cascading, frothy texture” with a “rich, creamy head of foam.” It also flavors it with vanilla, salted caramel and, for fall, pumpkin cream cold foam. Dunkin' is also doing salted caramel cold brew, and even Wendy's has cold
Anthony Alaimo works a bean roaster at Klatch Coffee's Rancho Cucamonga facility. A recent survey showed 38% of Americans drink coffee in the morning.
brew flavored like its Frosty desserts.
Dutch Bros, an Oregon-based chain that is rapidly growing in Southern California, has pumpkin brûlée cold brew and a long list of sweet icy drinks that is attracting long lines of 25-34-year-olds, mostly female, to its drive-thrus and walk-up windows, according to data tracker SimilarWeb.
Thirty percent of Americans drink flavored coffee in a week, according to the trade report, and 65% of Americans 25-39, more than any other age group, are likely to have had a specialty coffee in the past week.
The report said 38% of Americans have coffee in the morning, 15% have it with lunch, 19% have it in the afternoon and 7% have it with dinner.
Heather Perry, chief executive officer of Klatch Coffee and Mike and Cindy's daughter, has seen it.
“It's not limited to that morning ritual anymore. I also think for a lot of people it's no longer just an afterthought. It's not just putting a thing of Folgers in a grocery cart. It's being more intentional in what you're picking out.”
Quality counts
Demand has coffee companies in growth mode, including Starbucks and Dutch Bros, which hopes to quintuple its number of stores from 754 to more than 4,000, CEO Joth Ricci told Nation's Restaurant News early this year. Dutch Bros is not a typical coffee chain, with nearly all its business coming from drive-thrus and walk-up windows.
Cutting down wait times and long lines of cars is a challenge, he said. According to
Bloomberg News, Starbucks is also working to cut its wait times due to a long menu of elaborate drinks that slow baristas.
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Klatch have more traditional coffeehouses, but the goal is to meet customers' needs wherever they're at, according to Hadley.
“Certainly all of us know in the past 10 years or so the consumer trend is moving toward a more on-the-go lifestyle. Having said that, I think that the quality of the product, as well as what they're experiencing from the moment they walk into our cafes, is where we can really make a difference.”
The chain is known for two things, she said: the quality of its ingredients and its innovation.
On the quality side, she said the company has coffee and tea masters that search the world looking for the best coffee beans and teas, and that it has perfected roasting at its roastery in Camarillo.
On the innovation side, the company has a focus on teas, particularly cold brewed ice tea, which like cold brew coffee is said to be smoother. Its seasonal menu includes Valencia orange cream cold brew tea, topped with a “smooth cream cap.”
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has a growth strategy that includes drive-thrus, airport locations, hotels, college campuses and hospitals. And in June it launched a new design in Scottsdale, Arizona, that the company says is more vibrant and better reflects what it's serving.
There for you
Heather Perry said that when her parents founded Klatch Coffee, it was like Central
COFFEE BEAN & TEA LEAF
Perk, the place where characters gathered in the NBC sitcom “Friends.”
“Back in the day it had that `Friends' side to it. We had giant couches and a long list of mochas and smoothies and all that fun stuff, back in the day. But it's evolved since then.”
Heather Perry, who said she started drinking coffee at age 8, became interested in barista contests about 20 years ago, and the interest pushed the company forward. Klatch Coffee became focused on sourcing quality coffee beans and mastering the art of roasting them. It has outgrown its roastery and will be introducing a new, larger one to guests at its anniversary parties.
“Roasting is all about dialing in what we call that peak of flavor. And that's where the term we use, `peak of flavor,' comes from,” she said.
In 2007, Heather Perry won the title of “nation's best barista” at the Specialty Coffee Association of America's 19th annual Conference & Exhibition in Long Beach and went on to the World Barista Championship in Tokyo, where she came in second.
She said the competitions gave Klatch Coffee the connections to acquire Geisha coffee beans, said to be among the world's most expensive.
“We're selling our high-end coffees more than we ever have, and this year we're bringing in 13 Geishas. Our entry level one is $20, and the most expensive one we're selling this year is $106 for a 6-ounce bag.”
Customers still crave the “Friends” experience that baristas can provide, she said.
“One of the No. 1 complaints that we get is not enough seating. People do want that environment. They want to come and meet their friends; 100%, people are still looking for that,” she said.
“At the end of the day it's still coffee. I know for myself I wake up and have a hot cup of coffee every morning. And that's what I love and that's how I start my day. I do think what has changed in the last 30 years is you have people drinking more coffee, and I think you have people drinking coffee at different times of day in different ways.”