The World of Coffee

An infographic on who drinks coffee, how much they spend on it, and how a berry from Ethiopia became a global habit.

By Erjon Ajazi, September 2026

Coffee is one of the most consumed drinks in the world, but the numbers behind it are hard to picture. The World of Coffee is an editorial infographic that turns those numbers into something you can read at a glance: how much each country drinks per person and in total, what a cup costs from Zurich to Hong Kong, and more than a thousand years of history, from the Oromo people of Ethiopia to today's specialty cafés.

I designed it as a six-spread publication with a consistent grid, rounded data tables, and a restrained color palette, then released it as an interactive digital edition.

The palette is built on PANTONE 17-1230 Mocha Mousse, the Pantone Color Institute's Color of the Year 2025. Pantone describes it as a warm, soft brown that suggests coffee, cacao, and chocolate, which made it a natural anchor for a publication about coffee.

Around it I used a slightly deeper roast brown for tables and headlines, a pale crema tint for panels, a warm off-white for backgrounds, and a dark espresso brown for small type. Keeping the palette this narrow lets the photographs of real coffee beans carry the richest color on every page.

The publication moves from the present to the past: first who drinks coffee and what they pay, then where coffee came from.

Total volume and spending. The opening spread shows the scale of the habit. Americans drink about 400 million cups a day, and monthly spending differs by generation, with Gen Z spending the most. A world map filled with roasted beans anchors the comparison between consumption per person and total volume.

Consumption by country. Three spreads rank 65 countries by daily cups per person, cups over a lifetime, price per cup, and lifetime spending. Luxembourg leads with 5.31 cups a day and India is last at 0.02. The United States, the largest market by total volume, ranks 24th per person.

The world's most expensive cappuccinos. Zurich and Copenhagen tie for first at $6.77 a cup. Five of the ten most expensive cities are in the United States, led by New York at $5.95.

Timeline. Coffee's history from before 1000 A.D. to today: its first use among the Oromo people of Ethiopia, the qahwa of Yemen, the first coffeehouses in Mecca, Venice, and London, bans in several cities, and its growth into a global industry. Archival engravings and paintings illustrate each era.