What you need to know
Coffee remains one of America’s most popular beverages and the influence of coffee houses are still growing. These chains are using more technology than ever before, testing the delivery waters, and are adopting some of the practices of the third wave coffee chains. While still coffee dominates, tea has slowing been increasing in popularity the past few years and specialty tea shop chains have been emerging. Innovation and experimentation is still strong within the coffee house and tea shop category and consumers have more options than ever.
Definition
For the purposes of this report, here’s how we’ve defined this topic and market
It includes: this report focuses on coffee houses and tea shops, both independents and chains (eg, Starbucks, Peet’s, Argo Tea, and Stumptown). It will also cover coffee and tea within foodservice in general and will include examples and analysis of non-coffee or tea specific locations such as Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s, or Panera Bread. Please note this report builds off of the Coffee Houses and Donut Shops – US, December 2014 report. While donut shops will not be explicitly covered, there is some analysis surrounding Dunkin’ Donuts.
It excludes: detailed analysis of retail coffee or tea (eg, bagged coffee in a grocery store or RTD tea). Some retail examples will be in the report, but it is not an area of focus. For more information on coffee or tea in retail, please see Mintel’s reports: Coffee – US, September 2015 and Tea & RTD Tea – US, July 2015.
