The coffee industry is no longer looking West
Jordan Montgomery

 
August 4, 2026
The coffee industry is increasingly looking beyond traditional Western markets as Asia emerges as a major source of new ideas, products and consumer trends.
• Asia and Oceania recorded the world’s strongest coffee demand growth in 2024/25, with consumption rising 7.4% to 47.4 million bags of green coffee.
• As influence becomes more geographically distributed, businesses that broaden where they look for inspiration will be better placed to identify the industry’s next big ideas.
For much of its modern history, the coffee industry’s centres of influence were well established. Businesses looked to Western Europe, North America and Australia for new equipment, brewing techniques, coffee shop concepts and consumer trends. Success in these markets often dictated what came next for the wider industry.
 
However, that dynamic is beginning to shift. While these regions remain hugely influential, innovation is increasingly emerging from a much broader range of markets. From equipment and coffee shop concepts to consumer trends and competition success, countries across Asia are playing a growing role in shaping the direction of specialty coffee.
 
As these markets continue to expand, businesses are finding inspiration in places that have historically been overlooked by much of the coffee industry. This shift raises an important question – if influence is no longer concentrated in a handful of Western markets, are coffee businesses looking in the right places for the industry’s next big ideas?
The industry’s centre of gravity is shifting
Innovation tends to follow growth. As specialty coffee matured across Western Europe, North America and Australia, these markets naturally became hubs for new equipment, brewing techniques and coffee shop concepts. 
Today, however, many of specialty coffee’s fastest-growing markets are found elsewhere.
Europe remains the world’s largest coffee-consuming region, but the industry’s strongest demand growth is now occurring across Asia and Oceania. 
In 2024 to 2025 alone, Asia and Oceania were the strongest regional contributor to global demand growth, increasing consumption by 7.4% to 47.4 million bags of green coffee. Likewise, East Asia’s branded coffee shop market continues to expand at an extraordinary pace, adding more than 20,000 new stores in a single year. 
Muhammad Mustakim Othman is the Founder of Meadowbrew in Singapore. He says that although a lot of inspiration in the coffee sector has been drawn from the West, various non-Western markets are now taking charge of new ideas themselves.
“As a Singaporean and in the coffee industry, we do tend to look into the ‘West’ for ideas, innovation and technology for coffee,” he says. 
“I believe and see that after working and collaborating with like-minded people, the Asians have been improving and started to innovate and create a culture and identity of their own.”
Growing investment has transformed countries including China, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore from consumers in the specialty coffee industry into increasingly important contributors to it.
The coffee industry’s changing geography is also reflected on the competition stage. Recent World Coffee Championships have seen champions emerge from countries including China, Indonesia and Malaysia, while finalists from across Asia have become an increasingly common feature of coffee’s highest-profile events.
Asia’s growing influence is not simply the result of recent investment. Rather than replacing Western traditions, specialty coffee is increasingly recognising a diversity of coffee cultures that have existed for generations.

Influence no longer flows in one direction
Perhaps the clearest sign of change is not that Asia is only becoming more influential – it’s that ideas are no longer travelling in a single direction.
For decades, advancements in the coffee industry were often expected to move from Western markets into the rest of the world. Today, manufacturers, coffee shops and consumers are borrowing ideas from one another at a far faster rate. 
The shift is visible in more than just market statistics. Increasingly, ideas developed for local audiences are finding international relevance. Regional ingredients, brewing styles, equipment and customer experiences are crossing borders regardless of where they originated – with the boom of matcha products being a prime example. 
Mustakim has witnessed this first-hand, citing the growing influence of non-Western flavours in the hospitality sector. 
“The introduction of local delicacies and flavours are being picked up by the other regions,” he says. 
“Pandan-flavoured lattes, fresh coconut water, just to name a few, are getting trendy. Pistachio, the Kunafa ideas have been a big hit as well, which are predominantly popular from the Middle East.”
A decade ago, many coffee businesses looked almost exclusively to European, Australian and American manufacturers when investing in equipment. Today, that assumption no longer holds, and geography is becoming a far less reliable guide to where the industry’s next breakthrough product will emerge. 
Many Asian-based companies are now competing alongside long-established European, Australian and American manufacturers in coffee shops and homes around the world. Rather than serving domestic markets alone, many Asian manufacturers have built international distribution networks and are increasingly launching products for a global audience. 
At the same time, Western businesses are paying closer attention to how Asian consumers interact with coffee. From technology-enabled ordering and highly designed coffee shop experiences to ready-to-drink (RTD) products and compact retail formats, many of the ideas shaping modern coffee retail are now emerging from markets that, only a decade ago, were often viewed as followers rather than leaders.
These changes demonstrate that innovation is no longer confined to the coffee industry’s traditional high-consumption markets, and that the next breakthrough product may emerge from outside the West.
When influence becomes global
None of this suggests that Western Europe, North America or Australia have lost their importance. Many of the world’s most influential manufacturers, coffee shops and educators remain based in these markets, and they continue to shape the coffee industry in profound ways.
Instead, the coffee industry’s centres of influence are becoming more distributed.
This presents both an opportunity and a challenge for coffee businesses. Companies that continue looking to only a handful of traditional markets for inspiration risk overlooking products, consumer behaviours and business models that are already proving successful elsewhere. 
Starbucks’ experience in China illustrates how quickly established assumptions can unravel. Having built much of its global success by exporting a proven Western coffee shop model, the company has come under increasing pressure from domestic competitors that have taken a fundamentally different approach to coffee retail.
Companies such as Luckin Coffee have grown rapidly by embracing digital ordering, delivery, aggressive pricing and business models tailored specifically to Chinese consumers. Rather than following Western conventions, they built around local expectations – and in doing so, reshaped one of the world’s fastest-growing coffee markets. 
The lesson extends well beyond China: some of the industry’s most influential ideas are now emerging from markets that have historically been viewed as followers rather than leaders.
Mustakim believes the future belongs to businesses willing to learn from every corner of the industry. 
“The world is consistently growing into a multiracial and multicultural society,” he says. 
“Being open to adapt and learn new cultures may get the Western businesses [to adopt] trends and thrive in the ‘new world’ of coffee that is coming [sic].”
However, this does not signal the decline of Western influence. Instead, Mustakim believes specialty coffee will become more collaborative, with different regions contributing their own ideas and expertise.
“I strongly believe that Western and European countries will continue to innovate new and better technologies and trends,” Mustakim says. “But, in the new world, it would not be one-sided […] as more and more Asian trends and innovations will take place.”
For decades, coffee businesses could safely assume that the industry’s biggest ideas would emerge from a relatively small number of markets. That assumption is becoming increasingly difficult to defend.
Today’s most influential ideas may come from Seoul, Singapore or Shanghai just as readily as Melbourne, Oslo or Portland. Businesses that recognise that shift early won’t simply discover new products or coffee shop concepts – they’ll expose themselves to entirely different ways of thinking about coffee.
The coffee industry isn’t replacing one centre of influence with another. It’s becoming too interconnected for any single region to define it alone. Perhaps the biggest shift isn’t that coffee has stopped looking West – it’s that it has started looking everywhere.
Photo credits: Specialty Coffee Association, World Coffee Championships