International Coffee Day: How different countries enjoy coffee around the world

Marked annually on 1 October since 2015, International Coffee Day is a day to celebrate and promote the energy-giving beverage.

While the month of October might be pumpkin spice latte season for some, we thought it was time to look further afield for our coffee inspiration. Here are eight different ways coffee is enjoyed around the world.

Where better to begin our story on coffee around the world than the place where it all started? Ethiopia in East Africa is where coffea arabica, or the coffee plant, originates. Legend has it that a goat herder noticed his flock eating the cherries of a tree, after which they could not sleep at night. While the story is unlikely to be true, we do know that the earliest mention of the beverage dates back to the 10th century, and by the 15th century it was commonly drunk across several Arab nations, too.

Today, coffee is enjoyed daily in Ethiopia, and the coffee ceremony is a core part of Ethiopian culture. Green coffee beans are roasted over an open flame before being added to a mukecha to be ground. The ground beans are then brewed three times in a jebena, a traditional clay pot, with the first round of coffee known as awel, the second kale’i, and the third baraka.

From Ethiopia, the beverage spread to Yemen, and then across the Middle East, where it is an important cultural symbol. ‘Arabic coffee, a symbol of generosity’ was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity last year.

Across the Arabian Peninsula, qahwa, a bitter coffee that is typically mixed with cardamom or other spices, is brewed in distinctive dallah pots. Coffee rituals vary from country to country, but there are common aspects, like the finjān cups used to drink the beverage, and the dates that are typically served with the brew.

Coffee had reached Istanbul by the mid-16th century, when coffeehouses began to spring up. It is not known how the Turkish variant on coffee came to be, but we do know that the Ottoman Empire was responsible for coffee reaching Europe. Alongside Türkiye, you’ll also find Turkish coffee across Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, which puts a slight twist on the original.

Turkish coffee is prepared using very finely ground beans added to a cezve, a small brass pot, and may be heated using hot sand, with importance placed on the amount of sugar added at the point of brewing, and the amount of froth produced.

Coffee might have originated in Ethiopia, but today, Colombia stands as one of the biggest producers of the beans around the globe. Travellers often visit coffee plantations on visits to the country, and the Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2011.

Aside from coffee plantations, you can embrace coffee culture in Colombia by ordering a tinto, a black coffee made using the pour-over method.

French colonisation saw coffee introduced to Vietnam in the 1850s, and the country is now the second largest producer in the world after Brazil.

Coffee is typically prepared in a phin, a Vietnamese drip brew tool, and served tableside while still brewing. The lack of easily accessible fresh milk in the country meant that drinkers would instead add condensed milk, creating the Vietnamese coffee we know and love today. Another popular variant is Vietnamese egg coffee, where condensed milk is mixed with egg yolk before being added.

The first few months of the coronavirus pandemic saw dalgona coffee take over the internet, meaning many readers will no doubt already be familiar with the brew. But for those who aren’t, the beverage, which is made by whipping instant coffee powder, sugar and water together before adding it to milk, was invented in Macau in the late 90s, when it was known it Wai Ting Coffee, or Hon Kee Coffee.

It wasn’t until it was popularised in South Korea that it was dubbed dalgona coffee, as it is meant to taste as sweet as the Korean honeycomb toffee with the same name.

While the origins of this beverage are contentious, with both Australia and New Zealand staking a claim to the brew, no one can deny its popularity. The flat white, made with espresso and steamed milk, left Oceania in the mid-noughties, and is now among the most popular coffee orders for Brits.

A flat white is commonly found on coffee menus around the globe; Kaffeost certainly is not. Originating in northern Sweden, the beverage sees a black coffee served over leipäjuusto, a type of cheese. You drink the coffee first, then eat the cheese – giving the coffee a sweeter flavour, while the cheese absorbs the roasted flavours of the coffee.