Move over tea — coffee is the nation’s new favourite

It’s enough to have Mrs Doyle weeping into her tea cosy.

It seems the days of tea being the nation’s number one hot drink are over, with consumer monitoring firm Kantar World Panel revealing that coffee now accounts for 41% of the market — with tea knocked into second place on 40%.

The remaining chunk of the market is divided up between herbal teas and other hot beverages such as hot chocolate.

The figures come as the RDS yesterday played host to first day of the inaugural Dublin Coffee and Tea Festival.

The three-day event continues until tomorrow and features a festival roastery, food village, cupping room, and a variety of other events and exhibitors.

Check out some of our latte art @DublinCoffeeTea #dublincoffeeteafest pic.twitter.com/N8tRYitJkR

— Robert Roberts (@RobtRoberts) September 12, 2014

According to Kantar, coffee was bought 13% more often this year than it was four years ago, and all growth in supermarket sales of hot drinks is through coffee and herbal teas.

By contrast, traditional tea sales declined by 7.5%.

According to a Kantar spokesman, the booming desire amongst Irish shoppers for coffee is not being driven by jars of instant — instead, premium products, ground coffee, and beans are driving frequency growth.

Among the popular products are pods for Nespresso and other coffee machines, as well as an array of different beans and ground options.

“It is certainly taking up a lot more of our spend,” the Kantar spokesman said. “It is more volume and more visits [to buy coffee products].”

The growth in the number of coffee outlets around the country is now being mirrored with a variety of take-home products, resulting in the surge in sales in outlets.