Global Coffee Boom Accelerates Post‑Pandemic, but Sustainability and Waste Challenges Loom】
The world’s fascination with coffee is more than a simple love of caffeine; it is a complex tapestry of culture, economics, technology and environmental stewardship that has taken on new urgency as the planet warms and consumers’ habits evolve. While “咖啡相关” can be rendered in English as “coffee‑related,” the phrase now maps onto a sprawling set of phenomena that range from the language taught in language‑learning apps to the financial reports of multinational chains, from the rumble of climate models to the flicker of a TikTok video of a perfectly poured latte.
14 August 2025
A quick glance at the data shows how quickly the market has shifted. Before the pandemic, European coffee producers were already championing sustainability, fairness and supply‑chain transparency. In January 2020, a modest 80 % of coffee drinkers reported brewing at home. By 2022, that figure had risen to 84 %, underscoring how the crisis accelerated home consumption and reshaped retail habits. Apple, the tech giant, announced in 2020 that its own operations were carbon‑neutral and reaffirmed a 2030 product‑carbon‑neutrality target in March 2023, a pledge that now includes the coffee‑making gadgets that line its store shelves. Meanwhile, the global coffee market remains heavily concentrated: the Eurozone, the United States and Brazil together account for more than half of worldwide consumption, a concentration that magnifies any perturbations in those regions.
That concentration is already being felt in the rapid growth of capsule coffee machines, a segment projected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 12.8 % through 2029. The convenience of a single‑serve pod dovetails with the post‑pandemic desire for quick, at‑home brews, but it also raises questions about waste and sustainability that industry players are scrambling to address.
On the sustainability front, Europe continues to lead, experimenting with practices that could be exported to coffee farms. Researchers have shown that cutting back on flood irrigation for rice—a staple crop—could slash emissions dramatically; similar water‑saving techniques are being tested in coffee‑producing regions. In China, the “We Green Coffee Grounds Regeneration Project” is turning spent coffee grounds into novel products, most recently a BOB‑branded canned coffee beer, proof that waste streams can be re‑imagined as revenue streams while raising public awareness of circular‑economy principles.
The Chinese coffee scene is also sending vivid signals of its own. In August 2025, Luckin Coffee posted a single‑quarter revenue exceeding 10 billion yuan, even as its share price drifted lower—a reminder that rapid expansion
