Hispanics Like Coffee More Than Other Racial Groups

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Hispanics like to drink coffee more than other racial and ethnic groups. They begin drinking coffee earlier than other groups and are more likely in their older years to be exclusive coffee drinkers, according to a new study by the National Coffee Association (NCA) and reported on HispanicMPR.com.

Seventy-four percent of Hispanic-Americans drink coffee daily, 12 percentage points ahead of other Americans. As Hispanics become acculturated, they mimic the attitudes and behaviors of non-Hispanic coffee drinkers, according to "Ethnicity and Coffee: Focus on Hispanic-American and African-American Coffee Consumption Across the U.S. Market," a new study that is part of the National Coffee Association's Market Research Series.

The NCA study examined coffee consumption on a past-day, past-week and past-year basis. The researchers concluded that Hispanic-American respondents were more likely than Caucasians and African-Americans to consume coffee on a past-day, past-week and past-year basis.

Hispanic-American respondents also were more likely than Caucasian and African-American respondents to drink decaffeinated coffee and espresso-based beverages on a past-day basis. On a past-week and past-year basis, Hispanic-American consumers were more likely to drink espresso-based beverages when compared with Caucasian and African-American respondents.

Researchers concluded that the higher past-week penetration among Hispanic-Americans is driven by cappuccino and espresso, as they are more likely to consume both of these beverages on a past-week basis.

The NCA surveyed 2,955 Hispanic, Caucasian, African-American, Asian and other individuals for the study. In order to be certain of the tastes and behaviors of Hispanics, that group was over represented; one thousand Latinos were interviewed. To make sure the over representation did not bias the results when the researchers profiled the overall population, the final dataset was weighted based on age, gender, region and ethnicity to match the U.S. population based on the 2010 U.S. Census.

The breakdown by country of origin or geographic area among the Hispanics interviewed for this project was: from Mexico (502), other (137), Puerto Rico (132), Cuba (81) and Dominican Republic (52). By language preference (defined as level of acculturation by the researchers), Hispanic respondents were: Spanish dominant (336), bilingual (312) and English dominant (269).