Coffee and tea expectations are constantly evolving

By Sarah B. Hood

Customers at Vancouver’s Robson Street location of Japanese retailer Muji can order their latte from Jarvis the Robot Barista; Ottawa’s Grounded Kitchen serves robot-made Java; and Toronto’s RC Coffee has nine Robo Café locations, mainly in tourist hubs and hospitals — just one indication of how our coffee and tea expectations have changed.

With the disruption of the nine-to-five office workplace, new opportunities provided by emerging technologies such as micro-roasters and pandemic-survival strategies such as lobby kiosks, “coffee consumption has increased per capita,” declares Robert Carter, president of the Coffee Association of Canada.

However, “the dayparts are different,” says Adam Pesce, president of Toronto-based Reunion Coffee Roasters, which supplies some of Canada’s largest café chains. “Rather than picking up coffee on the way to work, people who are working at home will go out mid-morning or later in the day to give their day a little bit of flavour. And now that some people [can make] espresso at home, you’re seeing demand for more adventurous, cocktail-adjacent drinks.”

According to Ipsos, in 2023, 61 per cent of total visits were motivated by “the need for a craveable reward,” followed by “the need for a mental uplift” at 46 per cent.

Cold beverages are having a moment: Nestlé’s 2024 Canadian Food and Beverage Trends Report states that, for those under the age of 32, about “15 per cent of their overall beverage orders consist of iced or frozen coffee.”

Coffee trends also apply to tea. “There’s been a huge shift to quality,” says David O’Connor, co-founder, president and “chief steeping officer” at Toronto-based ethical tea supplier Genuine Tea. “When we first started in 2015, we weren’t seeing the same level of quality as in the coffee or the bean-to-bar chocolate movements. Now, tea offers foodservice establishments a higher margin because they’re able to charge $4 or $5 instead of $1.50. A tea program is low-hanging fruit because there’s so much you can do with tea or tea and juice.”

O’Connor, who places his teas “at the crossroads of innovation and tradition,” says both cafes and consumers are “always looking at the next big thing — turmeric lattes, matcha and butterfly tea flower, which starts blue and then turns purple.”

Flavoured-syrup supplier Monin is also identifying a thirst for the unusual among current beverage trends, such as its 2024 Flavour of the Year, ube, a purple yam from the Philippines. Pop culture and social media are driving consumer interest in bright colours, fresh flavours and “mashups” such as caramel whipped coffee, savoury ingredients such as turmeric and kitchen techniques such as smoking and brûléeing.

Nonetheless, Nestlé notes that vanilla remains the top coffee flavour (43.8 per cent of flavoured hot-coffee orders), followed by caramel (24.7 per cent). With iced and frozen-coffee orders, caramel is the top choice, but oat and pumpkin spice are rising.

Consumers are excited by Southeast Asian and Central American influences, such as Thai tea, bubble tea, matcha or Mexican mocha. Nestlé’s report quotes an Ipsos finding that “bubble tea is set to experience exponential growth, with the market projected to double in size by 2032,” and Monin suggests that a Golden Oolong Bubble Tea, with oolong tea, coconut milk, tapioca bobas and its own Monin Golden Turmeric Syrup, would be right on trend. Monin also reports that consumers are enjoying unique spins on retro drinks that evoke nostalgic childhood, such as a s’mores-themed beverage.

Coffee and tea chains, roasteries and independent cafés are all fulfilling the demand for these types of flavour combinations. Last March, McDonald’s introduced McCafé Cold Brew Coffee in five varieties, including unsweetened Cold Brew, French Vanilla Cream Cold Brew, Caramel Cream Cold Brew, Sweetened Cold Brew with Cream, and Cold Brew with Sugar-Free Syrup & Cream.

In April, Tim Hortons, which is turning 60, celebrated the 25th anniversary of its Iced Capps as well by launching a Caramilk Iced Capp to accompany the existing Oreo Double Stuf Iced Capp. The chain also offered a summertime Tiramisu Cold Brew with espresso-infused cold foam and is straddling the line between juice and tea with its new caffeine-fuelled Blackberry Yuzu and Mango Starfruit Infusr energy beverages, served in cans.

This spring, Good Earth Coffeehouse launched a timely collection of summer sippers, including Orange Blossom & Ruby Grapefruit Tea, topped with a slice of salted grapefruit; Grapefruit & Cucumber Spritzer with Orange Blossom tea and cucumber essence; Coconut Cold Brew with Cold Foam; and Butterfly Pea Flower Lemonade with lemonade, Butterfly Pea Flower tea and coconut syrup. One-off outlets are also surfing these trends, such as Scenic, a Japanese-inspired brunch spot in east-end Toronto, which offers classic coffees and teas along with five entirely coffee-free lattes: kinako soy, black sesame, matcha, hojicha and lavender oat.

Scott Ahmed is the senior manager of Product for Starbucks Canada. He says Starbucks’ customer-centred approach to innovation allows the company to inspire innovation and respond to changing customer preferences. “Starbucks has introduced new flavour profiles with our Iced Lavender Cream Oat Matcha and Lavender Oat Chill and met customer demand for more non-dairy options like our new non-dairy cold foams,” he says. The company has also re-imagined its Refreshers to answer the ‘swicy’ trend with Spicy Lemonade Starbucks Refreshers and introduced raspberry-flavoured popping fruity pearls for the first time.

“More than half our total beverage sales in Canada last year were for cold beverages,” Ahmed says. “Last year, we introduced our proprietary Cold Foam Blenders at stores in Canada in response to growing demand for cold foam. The new blender is portable so baristas can move freely behind the bar for a smoother workflow, while reducing the time and number of steps required.” Starbucks has also re-designed its stores to allow for larger cold-bar stations.

Despite the indulgence factor, health and wellness are also important drivers for coffee and tea consumption, since consumers are aware that they can be calorie-light and antioxidant-rich.

“Brands like [beverage-mix supplier] Blume have done

like their beetroot latte, turmeric latte and golden latte [featuring organic turmeric, ginger and ashwagandha],” says Pesce. “We’ve really seen the market turned on its head in that way. People who previously wouldn’t have ordered those things now will.”

“A big trend is the non-alcohol movement,” says O’Connor, who says that consumers of all ages are happy to adopt any “easy and approachable way to incorporate more wellness into their lives. The key, he says, is “innovating new products but making sure the ingredients are something consumers are comfortable putting into their bodies.”