Iced Coffee in the Winter? You’re Not Alone
Ordering an iced coffee during a blizzard? It’s becoming more common each year. For over a decade iced coffee, cold brews, and Ice Blended® drinks have enjoyed yearlong popularity, even when the sun is on sabbatical.
What is it about iced coffee that entices us, even when we need to wear gloves and get up early to warm up our cars? The secret that iced coffee fanatics already know: iced coffee is amazing at any time of the year, and we celebrate those who proudly choose iced coffee even on Christmas Day.
Iced Coffee Sales Are Booming
Iced coffee isn’t a trend — its popularity represents a fundamental shift in how the public prefers its java. Demand for chilled coffee has grown at least 10% every year between 2013 and 2017, and cold brew coffee’s uptick in popularity is even more pronounced.
Clearly, people are expanding their taste palette. Many coffee fans are wholeheartedly embracing the chilled version of our signature delectable beverage.
Dreaming of a (Cold) Christmas
Los Angelinos and others living in hot climates are partial to iced coffee for a simple reason — it’s hot out! Even as the holidays approach, residents of SoCal aren’t expecting a white Christmas. In countless regions around the country where “cold” translates to 60 degrees, iced coffee is a staple year-round.
If you live in an area without icy weather, enjoy your iced coffee in solidarity with those who need a warm pick-me-up. But as the infamous NYC photo demonstrates, even people living in colder climates go for iced coffee. Whether you’re craving a reprieve from the heat or ordering it in spite of the foot of snow outside, this holiday season you can be grateful for addictive and convenient iced coffee.
Love Iced Coffee? Thank Soda
Iced coffee isn’t a recent invention — iced coffee has been sold in the United States since the early 1900's. One popular ad from 1938 featured a polar bear touting iced coffee as making the summers “bear-able.” But overall, hot coffee was still the preferred version of java.
As the decades passed, chilled soda became the drink of choice for warm days and cold evenings alike. By the mid-90's, less than half of the population were daily coffee drinkers. To keep up with evolving preferences, coffee evolved as well.
Coffee Facelift: Cold Brew Coffee and Iced Coffee
As coffee drinks began to diversify; more variations on classic drinks began to appear on menus. “Iced versions of coffee are the latest, and perhaps most important, effort by the coffee industry to recapture what it likes to call a greater share of the bladder,” noted a 1989 New York Times article.
Nation’s Restaurant News reported that iced coffee, cold brew coffee, and innovations like our Ice Blended® drinks transformed the coffee scene. These delightful innovations have created long lines in coffee shops, even when the sidewalks are blanketed in snow. Sub-freezing temperatures or not, you can feel empowered starting off your morning with a delicious iced coffee.
Meet Your New Winter Companion: Iced Coffee
This winter, curl up with a cup of cold brew or iced coffee from your local The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf®. The way you prefer your coffee is as unique as you are - whether you crave a Cookie Butter Iced Latte or a Nitro Cold Brew, embrace what makes you unapologetically you.
