What’s More Popular in Your State: Tea or Coffee?
In 31 states, tea reigns supreme.
Osobystist/Getty Images
It may seem like the United States is a nation of coffee drinkers, given how we all go around clutching our cups of joe like crutches on our daily commutes and midday breaks. But a new report on coffee and tea trends across all 50 states released by the restaurant point of sale and management system Toast has revealed a surprising finding: Tea is actually more popular than regular coffee in the majority of states – 31 of them, to be precise.
Toast parsed sales data from about 112,000 quick-service restaurants and cafes between April 28, 2023, and March 31, 2024, across the U.S. Its goal: to determine which of 10 different types of coffee and tea beverages — regular coffee, iced coffee, cold brew, mocha, latte, cappuccino, espresso, Americano, tea and milk tea — were the most popular in each state. The answers varied by region.
“There was a clear divide, with the Northeast mostly favoring regular coffee as their go-to caffeinated beverage,” the firm concluded. “The Midwest and Western United States were split, with some states favoring tea, while much of the South and Southwest were team tea all the way.”
It’s worth noting that drinks in the “tea” category included iced tea, black tea, herbal tea and specialty tea, which is a lot of different teas combined into one, whereas the coffee category was broken down a bit further. All the same, differences emerged.
“Regular coffee” ranked high in Alaska, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin.
“Tea,” meanwhile, took the top spot in every other state.
In most states, “Latte” ranked third — behind regular coffee and tea — but not in all of them. Latte slid into second place, just behind tea, in Hawaii, Idaho and Washington; it was second only to regular coffee in Montana.
“Mocha,” meanwhile, ranked third in Alaska, Idaho and Oregon. In New Hampshire, “Iced Coffee” was the third most popular caffeinated beverage.
Incidentally, Toast also crunched the numbers on how much people are paying for their coffee and tea beverages across the country. In the first quarter of 2024, on average, across the U.S., customers shelled out $3.08 for a cup of regular coffee, $5.14 for cold brew, $5.46 for a latte and $3.74 for tea.
However, customers in some states paid more than others. In Hawaii, people paid more for their coffee than anywhere else — about $4.89 a cup, 59 percent higher than the national average. Coffee was around $3.88 a cup, 26 percent higher than the national average, in California, the second most expensive state. Hawaii and California were also the most expensive and second most expensive, respectively, when it came to the price of tea.
Coffee is cheapest, meanwhile, in Nebraska. A cup of joe in that state goes for 31 percent lower than the national average — only $2.12 on average. Road trip to Omaha or Lincoln for a quick cup, anyone?
Related Content:
