We’ve just had the Square UK Coffee report land on our laps for 2018.

Having analysed sales from independent coffee shops and cafes across the UK, it reports that the UK’s number 1 most popular drink is … the Caffe Latte!

In at #2 is a cup of tea, #3 is the Americano, #4 is the Flat White, #5 the cappuccino and #6 a filter coffee.

The Flat White, (essentially a latte with less milk for a stronger coffee taste), has really caught on: it originated in Australia and New Zealand and us Brits are adopting it way quicker than our American cousins.

Alternatives to dairy milk (almond and oat in particular) are also soaring in popularity with 4x year on year growth reported!

So does this report chime with Cafe Allez!’s experiences?  Keeping in mind we cater for a vast range of events, in various parts of the country, we’re well placed to give some observations. Here goes:

• Definitely the Caffe Latte is our most popular drink
• We’d estimate that coffees outsell teas for us in a ratio of 10:1.
• When somebody else is paying (e.g. at some of our corporate events), the large latte is the #1 choice
• Flat Whites are certainly a popular choice for our customers
• We sell at least one chai latte on most services
• Hot chocolate is huge for us across all age groups come the Winter time. We’re doing a Christmas lights switch-on event this weekend and estimate that 80% of hot drinks sold will be our hot chocolate – made fresh with steamed milk and optional marshmallows and cream!
• Definitely the trend towards non-dairy milk is something we witness, we are now getting asked for oat milk more often than soya. In some cases this is for the taste: oat milk cappuccinos work particularly well
• Iced coffees were a massive hit for us in the Summer, surprisingly so. We make ours by firing a double shot of espresso over iced milk, we’re also considering cold brew coffee for next year
• Customers lead other customers… we notice that if one customer orders, say, a caramel latte, this can trigger three or four similar orders from the queue
• Double espressos are quite popular with cyclists in particular, who want a strong caffeine shot without drinking something that will fill them up too much
• We often get asked for ‘just a coffee’ … on further discussion, we often find that the customer doesn’t want something approximating a filter coffee (an Americano would be the closest we can get), but would actually prefer a latte or cappuccino

We’d love to hear what your favourite drink is from Cafe Allez! or even if there’s a drink we don’t offer today that we really should…