The Japanese enjoy coffee in cans. The Vietnamese pour it over ice with sweetened condensed milk. Ethiopians spend as long as three hours preparing coffee and serving it in a special clay pot.
However they enjoy it, everyone's drinking more of it. “Consumption is increasing as societies in India, China and Latin 
America continue to be westernized,” Roberio Silva, executive director of the International Coffee Organization, told the Wall Street Journal in 2015. Expect the global demand for coffee to jump 24 percent in the next five years, Silva said, from 141.6 million bags to 175.8 million bags. (A bag weighs about 132 pounds.)
Europeans, Canadians and Americans remain the world's most caffeinated people, drinking the most coffee per capita. But coffee's rapidly becoming a popular drink in nations with burgeoning populations and increasing disposable income, such as India and China. Here's a look at changing global tastes for coffee.
China unscrews the lid on its coffee
Young Chinese are embracing the idea of coffee culture. But the brew itself is seen as less important than the atmosphere; coffee's a way of life, not merely a choice of hot drink.
Few people brew coffee at home or even own a coffeemaker. Many say they don't have the patience for the process. Outside of cafes, most Chinese prefer instant coffee, particularly the "3-in-1" combination of instant coffee, powdered milk and sugar. However, the fastest-growing coffee segment is ready-to-drink, sweetened liquid coffee, according to Euromonitor.
Both sweetened instant coffee and ready-to-drink beverages appeal "to the Chinese palate which generally prefers milder, milkier coffee to the stronger, acid profiles often evoked by fresh coffee," writes Euromonitor analyst Dana LaMendola. They prefer coffee drinks to be sweet and dairy-based, she says, and added flavors are growing more popular. Starbucks is paying attention; in March 2015, it announced an expansion of its bottled coffee drinks in China, saying that ready-to-drink coffee and energy drinks was potentially a $6 billion business.
Hospitality drives a coffee boom in the Middle East
Middle Easterners are no strangers to the little brown bean: They've been drinking coffee since the 16th century. Every nation has its own preferred way of savoring the drink. Egyptians like their coffee prepared the Turkish way, in a small cup with a layer of foam, explains Mustafa al-Labbad in a piece for Al-Monitor. Lebanese prefer once-boiled coffee in larger cups. Gulf Arabs often add ground spices, such as green cardamom, cinnamon and saffron.
But coffee has moved beyond the traditional street vendors and cafes into modern coffee shops, and coffee drinking overall is increasing at a rapid rate. Consumption in "Dubai in particular is growing at between 20 and 30 percent because of the expansion in the number of cafes,” says Khalid Khalid Al Mulla, a partner in the UAE company Easternmen & Co., according to a piece by coffee expert Maja Wallengren. The United Arab Emirates was named the world's fastest-growing market in a 2013 Euromonitor report.
Coffee is also an essential element of Middle Eastern hospitality, and hotels typically greet guests with a cup. At Al Bustan Palace, a Ritz-Carlton resort in Oman, the cultural host is known as the "Coffee Man." A hotel boom in Qatar ahead of the 2022 World Cup is expected to have a significant impact on coffee consumption, Wallengren reports.
India warms up to cafe culture
India is still a tea-drinking nation, where the average person drinks nearly 10 times as much tea as coffee each year. Nevertheless, Indian consumption of coffee rose by an estimated 80 percent from 2000 to 2010, the Wall Street Journal reports. Coffee, although considered a luxury item, is popular among young Indians — and with 356 million people between 10 and 24 years old, India has more young people than any other nation.
But unlike Americans, who make their own coffee at home, Indians consider coffee a treat to be enjoyed at a cafe or at the office. India's largest chain of coffee shops, Bangalore-based Café Coffee Day, popularized the custom of drinking coffee and socializing. There are now more than 1,500 locations across the country, eclipsing the modest presence of American chains like Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts®. Cafe Coffee Day also has an estimated 13,000 high-end vending machines in offices.
Traditional Indian coffee, popular in the south, is a strong brew made with a special filter, mixed with milk and sugar and served in a metal tumbler. And a side note: Did you know that drinking hot tea — or hot coffee — in hot weather can actually cool you down? Here's how it works.
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