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Coffee culture remains strong in Europe and the US.  A Reuters report in May 2011 by Nigel Hunt maintains the leader board of coffee consumers in favor of the US and Brazil—although Scandinavian countries hold the record in terms of consumption per capita.  With Starbucks Coffee International looking to expand its base in China from 450 to 1,500 outlets by 2015, as president John Culver told Reuters, China may well be the world’s next top consumer. 

(image: Financial Times)

In fact, on June 1st, 2011, Starbucks signed an agreement with Hong Kong’s Maxim’s Caterers Ltd.  This contract gives Starbucks “full control of more than half of the Starbucks retail stores in Mainland China as it looks to accelerate growth in the future.”  For Culver, this take over is “part of our broader strategy to build China as our second home market outside of the U.S."

According to data compiled by the International Coffee Organization, the total consumption of 60-kg bags of coffee beans in 2009 by the US alone, totaled to 21,435,967 bags.  Importing over 2,772 million pounds of coffee beans in 2009 alone, the US remains one of the top two consumers in the world.  

Brazil is both a top producer and consumer: in the ICO 2009 study, Brazil’s domestic consumption amounted to 18,390,000 bags, totaling 2,376 million pounds of coffee beans. 

Americans consume 25 percent of the world’s coffee market. According to the National Coffee Association, 167 million American coffee consumers downed 6.3 billion gallons of coffee last year.  As demonstrated by the International Coffee Organization’s 2009 data, the American per capita rate of consumption averages to 3.14 kg.  This is relatively low compared to Norway’s 8.92 kg per capita.  The world’s leader, in terms of per capita consumption, was Finland with 11.92 kg.