We spend a lot of time talking about coffee around here. Probably too much time, depending on who you ask.

So whenever the National Coffee Association releases its National Coffee Data Trends report, we like to take a look. The NCDT has been tracking the way Americans drink coffee since 1950, and the ⁠2026 numbers give us a pretty interesting snapshot of where coffee is right now.

First, Americans drink a LOT of it.

According to the NCA, 66% of American adults drank coffee in the previous day, putting coffee ahead of bottled water, tea, soda and juice. Nearly 195 million American adults drink coffee every week.

Here in the Northeast, we’re apparently even more caffeinated than everybody else. 75% of adults in the Northeast drank coffee in the previous day, the highest percentage of any region in the country.

So, as it turns out, Essex County, New Jersey isn’t a bad place to own a coffee shop.

Specialty Coffee Keeps Growing

This was probably the part of the report that interested us most.

According to the ⁠NCA’s 2026 specialty coffee research, 47% of American adults drank specialty coffee in the previous day. By the June survey, that number had climbed to a record 48%.

Think about that for a second. Nearly half of American adults are drinking some form of specialty coffee on any given day.

Among people ages 25 to 39, the numbers are even higher. 69% drank specialty coffee during the previous week.

We see some of that change across the counter at Cedar Bean’s. People are curious about coffee. They ask where a coffee came from, what kind of roast it is, how it was processed and why one coffee can taste completely different from another.

We love those conversations.

Of course, plenty of people walk in and just want a really good latte.

We love those people too.

Speaking of Lattes…

Espresso drinks are having a pretty good run.

In 2022, about 40% of American adults had an espresso-based beverage during the previous week. According to the ⁠Fall 2026 NCDT results, that number has climbed to 47%, an all-time high.

Lattes remain one of the most popular choices, along with espresso, cappuccino and cafe mochas.

That doesn’t surprise us much.

What we find interesting is that specialty coffee seems to be getting broader rather than narrower. There are people who want to talk about altitude, processing methods and varietals, and there are people who want a Honeyed Pistachio Latte.

Sometimes they’re the same person.

That’s coffee in 2026.

Apparently, Iced Coffee Season Is Now All Year

Anyone who has worked behind our counter on a hot July afternoon knows how much iced coffee people drink.

What’s changing is that cold coffee isn’t disappearing when summer ends.

Cold coffee represented about 16% of past-day coffee consumption in 2022. In the June 2026 survey, it reached 21%.

Cold brew, iced lattes and other cold coffee drinks have become everyday choices.

And yes, we recently bought a bigger ice machine that stores ~300% more ice than the old one.

Apparently the National Coffee Association could have saved us some research.

Flavor Matters

One of our favorite findings in the ⁠2026 Specialty Coffee Report was about flavor.

Among specialty coffee drinkers, 35% said flavor was part of what makes a coffee “specialty.”

Some of the flavor profiles people gravitate toward include chocolate, caramel and brown sugar, vanilla, nuts and fruit.

That’s one of the things that keeps coffee interesting for us.

Coffee doesn’t naturally taste like just one thing. Depending on where it’s grown, the variety of coffee, how it’s processed and how it’s roasted, you can find flavors that remind you of chocolate, nuts, berries, citrus, stone fruit, flowers and all kinds of other things.

Our newest El Salvador coffee, Second Mountain, for example, has natural tasting notes of milk chocolate and macadamia nut.

Nothing is added to create those flavors. They’re simply characteristics of that particular coffee.

Then again, sometimes we do add flavors to coffee.

We’re a coffee shop. We’re allowed to have fun.

We’re Making Coffee at Home, But We’re Going Out for It Too

Americans still make plenty of coffee at home.

In the latest survey, 83% of past-day coffee drinkers had coffee at home.

At the same time, 38% had coffee prepared somewhere outside the home, which is the highest level the NCDT has recorded since January 2020.

Those numbers can overlap, of course.

You can make coffee at 7:00 in the morning and stop at Cedar Bean’s at 10:30.

We won’t tell your coffee maker.

The report also found that 22% of coffee drinkers have coffee in the afternoon.

That’s something we’ve always found interesting because coffee shops aren’t just breakfast businesses.

People come in to work. They meet friends. They have meetings. They read. They bring their study-break from Montclair State here. They stop in after school. They need a break from work. Sometimes they just want to sit somewhere other than their house for an hour.

And, yes, sometimes they need another coffee.

Convenience Is Changing Too

One statistic from the Fall report really caught our attention.

Among people who purchased coffee away from home during the previous week, 55% used a drive-through and a record 40% ordered through an app.

That’s an interesting challenge for independent coffee shops like ours.

People increasingly care about better coffee, but they also want convenience.

We’re never going to be a giant coffee chain, and we don’t want to be. Part of the reason Cedar Bean’s exists is because we believe there’s still something valuable about having an independent neighborhood coffee shop where people know each other.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make getting a good cup of coffee as easy as possible.

It’s something we’re paying attention to.

Eight Years In, Coffee Is Still Changing

Cedar Bean’s opened in 2018.

Since then we’ve watched iced drinks explode, specialty coffee become much more mainstream, espresso drinks continue to grow and customers become considerably more knowledgeable about what they’re drinking.

What hasn’t changed much is why people like coffee shops in the first place.

Some people come in because they want to try a new single-origin coffee.

Some want the same drink they order every Saturday morning.

Some want caffeine.

Some want to meet a friend.

Some want to sit in the corner with a laptop.

And some people walk through the door and we already know what they’re going to order.

That’s probably our favorite part.

The numbers in the 2026 National Coffee Data Trends report tell us a lot about where American coffee culture is heading. We’re happy to see specialty coffee continuing to grow, but we’re even happier that people still want to go to coffee shops.

The ⁠National Coffee Association can keep track of the percentages.

We’ll keep making the spectacular coffee.

Statistics in this article come from the National Coffee Association’s 2026 National Coffee Data Trends research, including its Spring, Specialty Coffee and Fall 2026 findings. The NCDT has tracked American coffee-drinking habits since 1950.