Coffee Trends 2023: What Shaped the Year

Coffee never stands still.

New brewing methods gain popularity, café menus change and coffee drinkers become interested in everything from where their beans were grown to how they were processed.

Looking back, coffee trends 2023 reflected many of these changes.

Speciality coffee continued to attract attention, home brewers experimented with different equipment, cold coffee developed beyond a seasonal novelty and plant-based alternatives became increasingly familiar in cafés.

Some of those developments continued well beyond 2023, while others provide an interesting snapshot of where coffee culture was heading at the time.

Here are some of the coffee trends 2023 helped bring further into the mainstream.

1. Speciality coffee continued to grow

One of the clearest coffee trends 2023 was continued enthusiasm for speciality coffee.

Coffee drinkers were increasingly interested in more than simply ordering “a coffee”.

Origin, variety, processing, roast level and flavour all became part of the conversation.

Research released by the Specialty Coffee Association and National Coffee Association in 2023 reported that 52% of Americans surveyed had consumed speciality coffee during the previous week.

That doesn’t tell us exactly what happened in every country, including the UK, but it provides useful evidence of the strength of speciality coffee within a major consumer market.

For coffee drinkers, this greater interest meant more opportunities to explore coffees with distinctive characteristics rather than treating every bean as interchangeable.

If you’re starting to explore different coffees yourself, our guide on choosing the best coffee beans explains how origin, roast and processing can affect your choice.

2. Coffee origins became part of the experience

Closely connected to speciality coffee was growing interest in where coffee actually comes from.

Country names on bags were no longer simply labels.

Coffee enthusiasts wanted to understand why a coffee from Ethiopia might taste different from one grown in Brazil or Colombia.

Climate, altitude, variety, processing and farming practices can all influence the coffee before roasting and brewing introduce even more variables.

This made origin one of the more interesting coffee trends 2023 for people who wanted to learn more about what was in their cup.

Single-origin coffees provided an accessible way to begin exploring these differences.

You can compare some of the world’s major producing regions through our guides to Ethiopia, Colombia and Brazil.

3. Home brewing became more adventurous

Home coffee no longer had to mean instant coffee or a basic filter machine.

Coffee drinkers had access to an enormous selection of brewing equipment, grinders and freshly roasted beans.

Pour-over brewers, cafetieres and AeroPress brewing gave people relatively affordable ways to experiment at home.

Home brewing experimentation became an important part of coffee trends 2023.

Different brewing methods can highlight different characteristics from the same beans, encouraging people to adjust grind size, ratios, water temperature and brewing time.

The process can be as simple or technical as you want it to be.

If you’d like to experiment, see our brewing guides for the AeroPress, V60 and cafetiere.

4. Cold coffee kept expanding

Cold coffee was already well established before 2023, but the category continued to become more varied.

Iced lattes, cold brew and ready-to-drink coffee gave consumers alternatives to the traditional hot cup.

Cold brew was particularly interesting because it wasn’t simply hot coffee poured over ice.

It uses cold or cool water over a much longer extraction period, producing a drink with its own sensory characteristics.

The National Coffee Association was sufficiently interested in the category to publish dedicated 2023 consumer research covering cold brew and ready-to-drink coffee.

That makes cold drinks an important part of any retrospective on coffee trends 2023.

Today, you can explore the differences in our cold coffee guide or make your own using our cold brew recipes.

5. Plant-based milk became increasingly normal

Ordering coffee without dairy was no longer unusual by 2023.

Oat, soy, almond and other plant-based drinks had become familiar choices in many coffee shops.

For coffee drinkers, the discussion also shifted from simply finding a dairy substitute towards finding alternatives that actually performed well in coffee.

Barista formulations were designed to provide better texture, stability and steaming performance.

As a result, plant-based drinks became one of the coffee trends 2023 that influenced both café menus and home coffee routines.

Different alternatives can significantly change flavour and texture, so there isn’t one option that suits everybody.

Our guide to milk alternatives for coffee compares oat, soy, almond, coconut and several other options.

6. Coffee drinkers paid more attention to roast level

As consumers became more interested in the beans themselves, roast level became another useful way of choosing coffee.

Rather than assuming dark coffee automatically meant stronger or better coffee, enthusiasts increasingly explored how roasting changes flavour.

Light roasting can retain more noticeable origin and processing characteristics.

Medium roasting can offer a balance between those characteristics and flavours developed through roasting.

Darker roasting moves the profile further towards flavours created during the roast.

The growing conversation around roast preference fitted naturally with other coffee trends 2023, particularly the interest in speciality coffee and home brewing.

If you’re unsure which you prefer, our guide to coffee roast levels explains light, medium and dark roasting in more detail.

7. Sustainability remained part of the conversation

Sustainability was not a new subject in 2023, but it remained an important issue across the coffee industry.

Coffee has a long and complex supply chain connecting farmers, processors, exporters, importers, roasters, cafés and consumers.

Questions around climate change, farmer livelihoods, environmental impact and how value is distributed throughout that chain continued to receive attention.

The Specialty Coffee Association’s work during 2023 included a strategic focus on sustainability and the equitable distribution of value across the coffee sector.

For consumers, certifications, sourcing information and greater transparency offered different ways to learn more about where coffee came from.

Sustainability therefore deserves a place among coffee trends 2023, although it’s much bigger than a short-lived trend.

8. Coffee became more of an experience

Perhaps the broader theme connecting many developments was experience.

People weren’t only interested in caffeine.

They wanted to know where their coffee came from, experiment with brewing it, understand tasting notes and discover cafés or drinks that offered something different.

Coffee could become a hobby in much the same way that people explore wine, craft beer or cooking.

Our guide comparing coffee and wine looks at how both drinks can be explored through origin, varieties, processing, flavour and tasting.

This experience-led approach helped connect many coffee trends 2023 rather than leaving them as completely separate developments.

Which 2023 trends lasted?

Looking back from 2026 gives us a clearer view of which coffee trends 2023 actually lasted.

We can see that several developments associated with 2023 weren’t passing fads.

Speciality coffee remained important, while cold and ready-to-drink coffee continued developing. In 2024, National Coffee Association research found ready-to-drink had become the third most popular preparation method among past-day speciality coffee drinkers in its US survey.

Interest in origin, brewing and plant-based drinks also remained part of modern coffee culture.

That doesn’t mean every prediction made about coffee in 2023 came true.

Trends evolve, overlap and sometimes disappear.

That’s why keeping this article focused specifically on coffee trends 2023 is more useful than continually rewriting history to make an old trends article look current.

For the latest picture, read our separate guide to coffee trends 2026.

Explore the coffee behind the trends

Coffee trends 2023 introduced people to new ways of drinking coffee, but the beans themselves remained at the centre of the experience.

Trying different origins, roast levels and brewing methods is a simple way to discover what you genuinely enjoy rather than following something purely because it’s fashionable.

Browse CoffeeHype’s freshly roasted coffee collection to explore coffees from different origins and find a flavour profile that suits you.

Looking back at coffee trends 2023 shows an industry becoming increasingly diverse, experimental and interested in the journey behind every cup.

Some trends moved on.

Others became part of everyday coffee culture.