The future of coffee – what will coffee look like in 2026?

What’s the next big thing in the coffee industry?

The return of filter coffee as well as iced coffee! Filter coffee is becoming a more popular choice of drink in the UK for a number of reasons. These include, offering a completely different taste to espresso based coffee. The obvious difference is that the liquid is passed through a paper filter opposed to a metal one; this results in almost all the oils being removed from the final product, as well as any micro grins. Filter coffee, therefore, has a much cleaner, lighter taste and appearance.

Studies have shown that drinking filter coffee, compared against other methods, indirectly lowers cholesterol levels. In comparison to capsule machines, the benefits for the environment is in favour of filter coffee due to less energy for production and less waste produced.

Filter coffee is also easy to experiment with at home and doesn’t require an expensive espresso machine.

Iced coffee is also ever increasing in its popularity. The current trend, especially across the UK is iced coffee being the most popular in sales throughout the warmer months of the year. Iced coffee is also an incredibly popular choice of drink the those in the Gen Z age category. This can correlate to American TikTok influencers advertising it regularly. In 2019, the year of TikTok significantly increasing in popularity also saw iced coffee sales increase by 53.4%.

What will coffee look like in 2026?

The office coffee guy has become essential to workplace happiness by providing so much more than just your regular cup of joe. In fact, many offices will only continue in offering more health-conscious and trending product options in break rooms to keep their employees healthy and more motivated.

The current cost of coffee on the street is only going to continue rising. With more people home working and getting used to an instant service as an alternative to queuing, when your team are in the office, a quality coffee experience will be required.

Coffee consumers are also going to continue in looking at the health benefits behind their drinks of choice and the distribution factors behind where they get their coffee from.

Why is coffee getting more expensive?

Inflation is playing its part in the price of your takeaway coffee here in the UK and coffee alone increased 11.5% in 2022. The price of coffee has increased globally mostly due to bad weather affecting crops along with higher shipping and freight costs also fuelling the price hike.

Drought conditions in parts of South America have forced coffee prices to go up, and in the past two years, the Wall Street Journal says prices have soared overall by nearly 39%.

In the modern-day, coffee shops are more conscious than ever to ensure their coffee beans and the entire process of their coffee making is ethically sourced. The big coffee companies do this to ensure their workforce at the pre-production end are well looked after, ensuring that part of the coffee making wheel runs smoothly.

For these big companies, being able to state they are ethically sourcing their products is a great marketing tool and reputation builder. The fact coffee companies have to pay more for the whole process to ensure their coffee is being sourced and created ethically costs them more money, meaning the final product cost will also increase.