Americans Are Drinking Less Coffee Thanks to K-Cups

"People used to make a pot of coffee, now they make a cup."

Americans are drinking less and less coffee, thanks in part to K-Cups. According to Reuters, while the country is spending more money on coffee, people are — for the first time in six years — not consuming as much of it. Of the world's top eight coffee-drinking countries, America is the only one to see a "decline in consumption." The amount consumed is expected to drop from 24 million 60 kg bags down to 23.7 million this year — or approximately 126.9 billion 8-oz cups of coffee down to 125.4 billion cups — according to a biannual coffee report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This is in part due to the the rapid growth of single-serve coffee machines like the Keurig. Consumers now only brew "what they intend to drink," which Reuters writes is reducing the amount of coffee wasted. Coffee roaster Pedro Gavina laments, "People used to make a pot of coffee, now they make a cup." Coffee drinkers are also buying more single-serving pods and less bags of coffee. The Washington Post notes that "more than one out of every three dollars spent on coffee in this country is spent on a coffee pod."

A National Coffee Association survey reveals that despite the backlash, the number of American households that own single-serve coffee machines has gone up. In 2014, only 15 percent of households had one, but in 2015, that number jumped to over 25 percent. The growth is surprising considering that K-Cups are widely criticized for being wasteful and for having a negative impact on the environment. Even the pod's inventor, John Sylvan, regrets ever creating them.

Still, the idea of single-serve pods remains popular and the concept has infiltrated other beverages. There are now Keurig-like machines for everything from beer to cocktails to Jell-o shots. Will the beer and liquor industries also see a decline in the amount consumed one day?

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