| Tea and Coffee Consumption Per Capita | ||||
| Year | United States | United Kingdom | ||
| Coffee pounds | Tea pounds | Coffee pounds | Tea pounds | |
| 1866 | 4.96 | 1.17 | 1.02 | 3.42 |
| 1867 | 5.01 | 1.09 | 1.04 | 3.68 |
| 1868 | 6.52 | .96 | 1.00 | 3.52 |
| 1869 | 6.45 | 1.08 | .94 | 3.63 |
| 1870 | 6.00 | 1.10 | .98 | 3.81 |
| 1871 | 7.91 | 1.14 | .97 | 3.92 |
| 1872 | 7.28 | 1.46 | .98 | 4.01 |
| 1873 | 6.87 | 1.53 | .99 | 4.11 |
| 1874 | 6.59 | 1.27 | .96 | 4.23 |
| 1875 | 7.08 | 1.44 | .98 | 4.44 |
| 1876 | 7.33 | 1.35 | .99 | 4.50 |
| 1877 | 6.94 | 1.23 | .96 | 4.52 |
| 1878 | 6.24 | 1.33 | .97 | 4.66 |
| 1879 | 7.42 | 1.21 | .99 | 4.68 |
| 1880 | 8.78 | 1.39 | .92 | 4.57 |
| 1881 | 8.25 | 1.54 | .89 | 4.58 |
| 1882 | 8.30 | 1.47 | .89 | 4.69 |
| 1883 | 8.91 | 1.30 | .89 | 4.82 |
| 1884 | 9.26 | 1.09 | .90 | 4.90 |
| 1885 | 9.60 | 1.18 | .91 | 5.06 |
| 1886 | 9.36 | 1.37 | .87 | 4.92 |
| 1887 | 8.53 | 1.49 | .80 | 5.02 |
| 1888 | 6.81 | 1.49 | .83 | 5.03 |
| 1889 | 9.16 | 1.25 | .76 | 4.99 |
| 1890 | 7.77 | 1.32 | .75 | 5.17 |
| 1891 | 7.94 | 1.28 | .76 | 5.36 |
| 1892 | 9.59 | 1.36 | .74 | 5.43 |
| 1893 | 8.23 | 1.32 | .69 | 5.40 |
| 1894 | 8.01 | 1.34 | .68 | 5.51 |
| 1895 | 9.24 | 1.39 | .70 | 5.65 |
| 1896 | 8.08 | 1.32 | .69 | 5.75 |
| 1897 | 10.04 | 1.56 | .68 | 5.79 |
| 1898 | 11.59 | .93 | .68 | 5.83 |
| 1899 | 10.72 | .97 | .71 | 5.95 |
| 1900 | 9.84 | 1.09 | .71 | 6.07 |
| 1901 | 10.43 | 1.12 | .76 | 6.16 |
| 1902 | 13.32 | .92 | .68 | 6.07 |
| 1903 | 10.80 | 1.27 | .71 | 6.04 |
| 1904 | 11.67 | 1.31 | .68 | 6.02 |
| 1905 | 11.98 | 1.19 | .67 | 6.02 |
| 1906 | 9.72 | 1.06 | .66 | 6.22 |
| 1907 | 11.15 | .96 | .67 | 6.26 |
| 1908 | 9.82 | 1.03 | .66 | 6.24 |
| 1909 | 11.43 | 1.24 | .67 | 6.37 |
| 1910 | 9.33 | .89 | .65 | 6.39 |
| 1911 | 9.29 | 1.05 | .62 | 6.47 |
| 1912 | 9.26 | 1.04 | .61 | 6.49 |
| 1913 | 8.90 | .96 | .61 | 6.68 |
| 1914 | 10.14 | .91 | .63 | 6.89 |
| 1915 | 10.62 | .91 | .71 | 6.87 |
| 1916 | 11.20 | 1.07 | .66 | 6.56 |
| 1917 | 12.38 | .99 | 1.02 | 6.03 |
| 1918 | 10.43 | 1.40 | 1.19 | 6.75 |
| 1919 | 9.13 | .87 | .76 | 8.43 |
| 1920 | 12.78 | .84 | .74 | 8.51 |
Figures for all except most recent years are taken from the Statistical Abstract publications of the two countries. For the United States the figures given apply to fiscal years ending June 30, and for the United Kingdom to calendar years.
Coffee Consumption in Europe
On the continent of Europe, however, coffee enjoys much the same sort of popularity that it does in the United States. The leading continental coffee ports are Hamburg, Bremen, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Havre, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Trieste; and the nationalities of these ports indicate pretty well the countries that consume the most coffee. The northern ports are transhipping points for large quantities of coffee going to the Scandinavian countries, as well as importing ports for their own countries; and these countries have been among the leading coffee drinkers, per head of population, for many decades. Norway, for instance, in 1876 was consuming about 8.8 pounds of coffee per person; Sweden, 5 pounds; and Denmark, 5.2 pounds. The per capita consumption of various other countries at about the same period, 1875 to 1880, has been estimated as follows: Holland, 17.6 pounds; Belgium, 9.1 pounds; Germany, 5.1 pounds; Austria-Hungary, 2.2 pounds; Switzerland, 6.6 pounds; Prance, 3 pounds; Spain, 0.2 pounds; Portugal, 0.7 pounds; and Greece, 1.6 pounds.
Today, the leading country of the world in point of per capita consumption is Sweden (15.25 pounds); but Holland held that position for a long while. During the World War the disturbance of trade currents, and the high price of coffee, greatly reduced the amount of coffee drinking; and the Dutch took to drinking tea in considerable quantities.
France. Second only to the United States, in the total amount of coffee consumed, is France; although that country before the war occupied third place, being passed by Germany. Havre is one of the great coffee ports of Europe; and has a coffee exchange organized in 1882, only a short time after the Exchange in New York began operations. France draws on all the large producing regions for her coffee; but is especially prominent in the trade in the West Indies and the countries around the Caribbean Sea. Imports in 1921 (preliminary) amounted to 322,419,884 pounds; exports to 1,154,769 pounds; and net consumption, to 321,265,115 pounds.
Germany. Hamburg is one of the world's important coffee ports; and in normal times coffee is brought there in vast amounts, not only for shipment into the interior of Germany, but also for transhipment to Scandinavia, Finland and Russia. Up to the outbreak of the war, Germany was the chief coffee-drinking country of Europe. During the blockade, the Germans resorted to substitutes; and after the war because of high prices, there was still some consumption of them. German coffee imports since the war have not quite climbed back to their former high mark; and the per capita consumption, judged by these figures is still somewhat low. Importations amounted to 90,602,000 pounds in 1920. The amount of total imports was 371,130,520 pounds in 1913; total exports, 1,783,521 pounds; and net imports, 369,346,999 pounds.
Netherlands. Netherlands is one of the oldest coffee countries of Europe, and for centuries has been a great transhipping agent, distributing coffee from her East Indian possessions and from America among her northern neighbors. Before sending these coffee shipments along, however, she kept back enough plentifully to supply her own people, so that for many years before the war she led the world in per capita consumption. As far back as 1867–76, coffee consumption was averaging more than 13 pounds per capita. In the year before the war, the average was 18.8 pounds. The blockade, and other abnormal conditions during the war, threw the trade off; and it is still sub-normal. In 1920 the net imports were about 96,000,000 pounds, which would give a per capita consumption of about 14 pounds if it all went into consumption. But part of it was probably stored for later exportation, as indicated by the figures for 1921, which show heavy exports and a consequent lower figure for consumption. Eighty percent of the Netherlands coffee trade is handled through Amsterdam.
Consumption of coffee is now slowly going back to normal, but the change in source of imports—which before the war came largely from Brazil but which war conditions turned heavily toward the East Indies—is still in evidence. Per capita consumption of coffee in Holland up to the outbreak of the war was as follows:
| Coffee Consumption Per Capita in Holland | |||
| Year | Pounds | Year | Pounds |
| 1847–56 | 9.6 | 1907 | 14.9 |
| 1857–66 | 7.1 | 1908 | 14.3 |
| 1867–76 | 13.3 | 1909 | 16.7 |
| 1877–86 | 16.7 | 1910 | 15.7 |
| 1887–96 | 12.8 | 1911 | 15.8 |
| 1897–1906 | 16.7 | 1912 | 12.3 |
| 1906 | 17.2 | 1913 | 18.8 |