Before Starbucks, People Just Drank Coffee

Coffee has been a popular drink for centuries, but in recent years its popularity has skyrocketed.
Approximately 52% of all Americans over the age of 18 drink at least one cup of coffee every day.
That means around 107 million people are drinking coffee and most of them drink about three and a half cups a day.
And they aren't drinking it like their parents did-scooped from a vacuum-sealed can and poured straight from a pot on the stove or percolator.
Now they're buying specialty and gourmet coffee and often brewing them in expensive coffee makers.
They buy green coffee beans and roast them to their particular taste in coffee bean roasters bought especially for coffee roasting.
Even more likely, though, they're stopping by their local Starbucks and purchasing a latte or espresso or any number of other special coffees the coffee giant offers.
Starbucks has to be the biggest thing to happen to coffee since people began drinking it.
This is certainly true in the United States, at any rate.
Before Starbucks, people just drank coffee (and breakfast is the most popular time, with 64% of people drinking a cup to help get them up and moving).
It was no big deal.
Then came Starbucks, and all of sudden drinking coffee became an experience.
The Starbucks cup has even become sort of a status symbol.
Celebrities of all kinds were photographed holding those cups, so of course, everyone wants Starbucks.
This had a huge effect on young people who normally wouldn't have become coffee drinkers until their mid to late twenties.
They began meeting their friends at their local Starbucks for a cup of coffee, or more likely, a latte of some sort.
Coffee is more popular than ever, too, because recent studies have proved that coffee isn't bad for you as many previously thought, but it's actually good for you.
Coffee is rich in antioxidants and is believed to be helpful in preventing diseases such as cancer and diabetes.
So people who once limited their coffee consumption now feel free to have as much as they want.
All of this means that coffee's tremendous popularity is here to stay and will become even more popular.
Coffee just may be the new black that stays the new black.