Five Coffee Trends to Expect in Ireland in 2021
The much-maligned 2020 saw a run on the number of people buying home espresso machines and the popularity of an instant coffee based drink with equal part sugar. Here’s what we’ll be seeing in 2021….
The Growth of Home Baristas
The humble French Press may find itself in intimidating company with a year of lockdowns giving people the opportunity to experiment not only with different coffee varieties and roasts but also new ways of making their favourite brew. Investing extra cash in what was previously seen as expert coffee equipment is becoming more favoured with work from home professionals missing the sit-in cafe vibe.
The arrival of the Aeropress Go last year as the perfect on the move coffee making gadget has equally proven itself to be an ideal home office utensil and we’ve already seen an increase in the number of domestic espresso machines being sold. We predict more people will now start turning to other brew sets for their mid-morning cuppa.
Return to Reusable
Disappointingly, the pandemic created much confusion around the safety of customers using their own keep cups. It may even be alleged that individuals from industries acting contrary to the environmental benefits of reusable principles may have capitilsed on this and heralded the need of single-use items, which had become increasingly diminished with changes in consumer behaviours and reusable cups begining to challenge the place of their single-use contemporaries.
““Recycling of takeway cups is possible but notoriously difficult””
To combat this, over 100 scientists, health experts and academics asserted the safety of reusables in a coordinated, signed statement last year. Closer to home, The Conscious Cup Campaign has been driving behavioural change by encouraging consumers to use and reuse their own cup. The impending Latte levy which will put an additional fee on single-use items (similar to the plastic bag levy) will be a major driver in this switch to reusables over the coming years too and there is a growth in reusable options , with the R Cup becoming more popular on the Irish market.
Mushroom Coffee
What do we know about mushroom coffee…..? Very little. We thought it was something else entirely and our minds harked back to the time monkey commandiered a small gondola in a certain European city and tried sailing us to Jupiter.
There is growing interest in this fungus and coffee merger, particularly regarding the health benefits marketed around it. We’re told it’s earthy in flavour and not particularly mushroomy. We draw the line at mushroom latte art though…. Not very photogenic.
Egg Coffee
The Dalgona dominated Instagram posts last year with more and more home coffee enthusiasts trying their hand at this opinion-splitting brew. We gave our opinion on it with a Fake Fact Friday last year. However, we would be in no way surprised if Egg Coffee became the next caffeinating viral sensation over Easter this year.
Particularly popular in Northern Vietnam, Egg Coffee is whipped egg yolk and condensed milk on top of your coffee shot. Its sweetness works particularly well with the robusta bean commonly roasted and brewed for Vietnamese coffee with its bitter flavour. Granted, it takes a while to whip the condensed milk and egg together but it’s a guaranteed treat and reason to procrastinate away from your laptop for ten minutes (along with another ten minutes on top of that for the perfect insta shot).
Higher Customer Coffee Expectations
Returning to our first prediction about the rise of the home barista, this too will raise expectations on coffee shops to produce the goods and maintain excellent level of service and knowledge about the types of coffee they use.
Towards the end of last year, it started to become more common for people to ask what coffee we used, what it tasted like, how it was roasted and, also, where it came from. Transparency and fair pay for famers will begin to influence what we buy over the next number of years.
There are some great coffee roasters playing their part to be as transparent as they can regarding how and where they source their beans from such as Moyee Coffee, Ireland’s first Fairchain coffee. They roast and package at source and working towards giving the farmers a living wage. Their efforts towards better chain equality along with better social and environmental principles in coffee farming is a large part of the reason they are our main supplier of some cracking coffee.
So…..That’s our 5 predictions. Got your own predictions? Let us know on Instagram/ Facebook