Coffee: Home and away

Coffee is the most popular beverage in the world, with more than 400 billion cups consumed each year, Roger Williams encourages buyers to look carefully at the product's own journey before serving it onboard

there are many variables in the coffee bean journey from plant to café menu, and onboard caterers have to select a coffee that best suits their market. The choice offered has to match the consumer need, and despite all the best efforts of producers, blenders and roasters to offer (in their opinion) the very best taste, that consumer may well simply make their decision on the basis of loyalty to a favourite brand.

Big brand franchises often use very high temperature, fast roasting as a tactic to speed up the production process and cope with the high volumes required. This gives the more bitter taste popular in some markets, such as the US where 400 million cups of coffee are drunk every day. Coffee 'connoisseurs' tend to prefer local, artisanal roasts and these continue to grow in popularity, often using espresso beans from several different origins.

In the travel arena, however, especially onboard aircraft and trains, service options are limited due to space, power and time. Even if an operator is lucky enough to have access to a plumbed in barista machine, the frequency and volumes demanded are unlikely to allow for the provision of many different bean options.

Pod systems such as offered by N'espresso have led the way in simplifying easy-serve coffee choice and can be mounted on trolleys, and dedicated branded coffee trolleys as developed by Engineerethics have also established practical ways to deliver quality onboard.

Now industry watchers are looking for changes in consumer coffee demands post pandemic. As consumers haven’t been able buy as regularly in the high street or onboard, they have been getting their coffee kicks at home instead, with a big rise in sales of coffee online and from the supermarkets.

“The growth centres around roast and ground coffee,” explains Kantar analyst Madeleine Peck.

“Pods saw growth of 19.9% alongside 21.2% for filter cafetières and 32.9% for beans.

Coffee bags are the smallest sector by value, but also grew by 55.3%.”

New habits have been forming and may impact expectations onboard in the coming months.

audience participation

Buyers need to know their audience too and among the most crucial are the millennials who now account for 44% of overall coffee sales. Among those aged 18 to 24 coffee consumption has risen to over 48% compared to other beverages. Millennials also drink more types of coffee than any other generation, focusing on espresso, lattes, iced coffee and slushy coffee, so it pays to offer plenty of choice.

Consider for the summer, iced coffee brews, such as the Greek frappe – whipped and made with a mix of coffee, water and sugar, served with ice and topped with cold condensed milk. The drink is commonly served in a tall glass with a straw. In Greece it is typically made with Nescafe but look out for the Korean Dalgona Coffee that is a very similar style and is now storming the internet, viral on Tik Tok.

From France, the classic Café au lait is a simple combination of brewed coffee with steamed hot milk – a favourite due to the light and creamy taste. It has equal amounts of coffee and milk and unlike Caffé latte, usually doesn’t have foam on top.

More exotic perhaps is Kaapi, Indian filter coffee, made from finely ground beans, brewed using a metal filter and blended with boiled milk – brands emerging with these products include Indian Kaapi Co and Kingsmen Coffee, Bengalaru in Southern India.

Or, for the very adventurous Vietnamese egg coffee makes an interesting dessert – made with egg yolk, cold condensed milk, sugar and hot coffee. Vietnam is one of the world’s largest coffee producing countries with many brands, including Vi Asia or Dragon Coffee.

The Café Cubano espresso is brewed with coffee and sugar together, giving the drink an intense and sweet flavour. Alternatively, it can be topped off with steamed milk to make it a Cuban cortadito.

In Japan, it is canned coffee that is driving volumes, invented in the 1960s by Ueshima Coffee Co. Literally billions of cans are sold every year. The coffee is flash brewed very hot and then chilled very quickly to retain the flavour. It comes hot, cold, iced, milky and is brewed ready to drink and even sold in vending machines. For business imports check out BOSS and KIRIN (already known for its Japanese beers).

A true coffee connoisseur will seize opportunities to try something different, especailly if it is authentic and has a clearly transparent back story along with it.

Operators have plenty to consider and identifying the back story should be part of the decision making process. There are over 120 different species of coffee plant, but only two are grown commercially at scale – Coffea arabica (Arabica) and Coffea canephora (Robusta). Arabica cultivation is thought to have originated around the 12th century in Yemen. Arabica is now grown in dozens of countries, making up 60% of the coffee sold in cafés around the world.

Robusta generally grows at lower altitudes and higher temperatures and can be traced back to

A true coffee connoisseur will seize opportunities to try something different

Ethiopia as early as 850 AD. It is easier to cultivate and more affordable than Arabica.

Arabica beans have higher acidity levels and sweet, soft and fruity flavours, while Robusta beans have deep, woody, even intense flavours and are often used in instant coffee, or as a base for Arabica blends, or for Italian espresso.

Deciding which bean is better is very emotive as taste is so personal and serving conditions so variable. There are also many variables along the production process. If you select products which use beans produced from a Typica instead of a Maragogype or choose a Mundo Novo rather than a Kent, the flavour experiences will be very different and distinct. Likewise, growing conditions have a big impact on final products, including altitude, soil type, rainfall and temperature. Once harvesting begins, handpicking only the ripest cherries, or using picking machines affects flavours too. And the management of drying and natural processing can add fruity and earthy flavours, or if not done properly spoil the taste. Where cherries are washed and left to soak in water complex flavours emerge, whilst pulped natural processing creates a sweeter and fresher taste. The mix of either single-origin bean or blended beans can produce unique flavours, and the balance of time and temperature in the roasting also impacts colour and flavour.

There’s a lot to consider in the catering choice. But one thing isn’t likely to change. The popularity of coffee and its value as a key part of the travel experience. •