Hong Kong has long been a tea town. Its signature coffee drink, the tannin-heavy yuenyeung, is a blend of coffee, black tea and evaporated milk. But a wave of Australian-style coffee culture has belatedly arrived, bringing superb flat whites and ever-lengthier pour-over menus. Many opt for the “Dirty”, a Tokyo invention in which a shot of espresso (or two) is poured over a short glass of cold milk, making a sort of unmixed cortado that offers harried office workers a quick, rich drink. A “Creamy Black”, meanwhile, is a chilled Americano with a small amount of milk foam on top, that, in the words of my local barista, “drinks like a beer” (he’s right). Coffee shops are also staying open later — one favourite haunt mixes fiendish coffee negronis at sunset. However, many don’t open until 10am or 11am, leaving this confused New Yorker with his cafetière.
— Eli Meixler, Asia world news editor
Dublin has an ever-multiplying list of trendy coffee shops, where we’re increasingly seeing the coolification of Irish coffee. Take a traditional recipe, swap the coffee for cold brew and the whiskey for moonshine, slide in syrup, top with cream and nutmeg and the result is an edgy new twist on a drink that was originally invented in 1943. Made with poitín, a newly hip spirit that was banned for centuries, the “Belfast Coffee” is the star at Dublin’s popular Bar 1661. Vice Coffee Inc also offers three chic versions (one with poitín) of Irish coffee that owner Tom Stafford says showcase the country’s great roasters, “amazing whiskey and the best dairy in the world”.
— Jude Webber, Ireland correspondent
When it comes to iced coffee, there are few stronger cases for it than the Shanghai summer. Opened in June on former nightlife hotspot Yongkang Road, one new store, Cubic 3 (San Li Fang), offers coffee in cups kept from minus 60C to minus 80C — often a difference of well over 100 degrees with the outside air. The street, home to an Irish pub and about half a dozen cafés, saw its former carnivalesque ambience tamed by a combination of a pandemic and consistent noise complaints. But the new ultra-cold coffee, with its faint echo of frosty pint glasses, sometimes draws queues. “We give them water every 20 minutes,” says one member of staff, “otherwise they’ll get heatstroke.”
— Thomas Hale, Shanghai correspondent
Into the saturation of Tokyo’s kissaten blends and hand-poured specialities comes a new wave elevating the stimulant to an art form: coffee omakase. At trailblazing Japanese barista Eiichi Kunitomo’s Koffee Mameya Kakeru, coffee lovers sip their way to an exquisite buzz from a handpicked course of mocktails, drip coffee and cold and milk brews. Baristas in lab coats bring omotenashi and craftsmanship to turn the humble bean into a refined set of caffeinated concoctions. Adjusted to bean harvests and seasons, delights range from tangy cascara-infused oolong tea to milk brew slow-dripped for 25 minutes while curdling with white grape vinegar. It is reservation only, though Cokuun and Lonich are other Tokyo cafés where baristas serve up meticulously curated tasting courses.
— Harry Dempsey, Tokyo correspondent
In Athens, coffee isn’t just a drink — it’s practically a creed. Nowhere else would a barista nod along as you order a freddo cappuccino with one spoon of stevia, one of black sugar, light foam, a sprinkle of cinnamon and exactly one ice cube. Summer belongs to the freddo: espresso shaken into a frothy, ice-cold elixir, or crowned with creamy milk foam. Cafés in the city pop up and vanish as quickly as fashion trends, but coffee itself never goes out of style. It’s the city’s daily ritual, social glue and eternal love affair.
— Eleni Varvitsioti, Greece and Cyprus correspondent
Mexico City’s speciality coffee scene has boomed since the pandemic. Digital nomads have driven a wave of new cafés in the leafy neighbourhoods of Condesa and Roma that has gone hand in hand with producers in Chiapas, Oaxaca and Veracruz states increasingly growing world-class beans. Caffeine enthusiasts are seeking more experimental drinks with a Mexican twist. Qūentin, a fashionable chain, serves carajillos — espresso shaken with Licor 43, a fragrant Spanish liqueur — which are a staple of nightlife in the capital. Anvil stirs espresso into horchata, a traditional rice and cinnamon drink, while Café Avellaneda mixes flavours like hibiscus with cold brew. Entrepreneurs are also reclaiming Mexico’s heritage as the birthplace of drinking chocolate, adding twists of almond, black pepper or orange peel to their mochas.
— Christine Murray, Mexico and Central America correspondent
New York’s fix for a cup of joe is so extreme that almost every venue is now a something-cum-coffee shop. Going to the laundromat? There’s a $6 chai while you wait for your clothes to dry at Laundry & Latte. There is artisanal coffee to be found at flower shops in the West Village (such as PlantShed), barber shops in Williamsburg (Cotter Barber), record stores in Bed-Stuy (Black Star Vinyl), an art gallery and tattoo parlour in Greenpoint (Café MSMN), and even a bank’s matcha latte recently blew up on TikTok (Capital One Café). For a city with a Starbucks on practically every corner, the tide has seemed to shift towards other third spaces with quality offerings. Where will coffee take over next?
— KJ Edelman, US growth and engagement journalist
In Mumbai, although premium coffee is still very niche, more Indians are embracing it outside of the strong, sugar- and chicory-laden filter brews popular in the country’s south and traditionally served in steel tumblers. Café chains, such as Blue Tokai and Subko, are sourcing high-quality, single-origin beans from Indian estates, while cold brew has become a “gateway drug” for many, says Raghunath Rajaram, co-founder of speciality coffee company Aramse. “People kind of take to that before they start venturing into pour overs and drinking straight espresso.” Along with a rise in home brewing, “there’s definitely a café culture that’s driven by Gen Z expectations”, he adds.
— Chris Kay, Mumbai bureau chief
In the wildly diverse coffee scene of Los Angeles, perhaps the most innovation is coming from Asian-inspired shops. At Nam in East Hollywood, owner Vince Nguyen features Vietnamese egg coffee, salted cream coffee and other drinks inspired by his home country. There is also robust competition among coffee shops in Koreatown, where most have their own take on the Einspänner — a cream-topped coffee that originated in Vienna. Stagger, one of the newer shops in Koreatown, serves cream-top coffees and matchas, including an iced double matcha with a cream top that is so popular that customers line up outside for them.
— Christopher Grimes, Los Angeles bureau chief
Paris is a city where coffee is ubiquitous but a lot of it is quite bad. Many traditional terrace cafés, tobacco shops and brasseries still rely on dark, bitter stuff churned out from variable-quality espresso pods, and asking for non-dairy milk will earn you a barely contained eye roll. But they are being challenged by the rise of néocafés — new design-forward spots that have been popping up all over the French capital in recent years, offering high-quality coffee and catering to hipper palates with drinks like matcha, sesame and golden lattes, and various non-dairy options, all for a substantial mark-up. Whereas a café noisette costs around €2.50 at a traditional boulevard café, an oat-milk flat white at Noir, a trendy coffee chain that now has about two dozen locations in Paris, will set you back €6. High-end chains % Arabica, The Coffee and Café Kitsuné are also expanding. Café Nuances (which has a few locations) feels like entering an art space, while Partisan in the Marais has become a place to see and be seen.
— Adrienne Klasa, Paris correspondent
In Warsaw on Oleandrów Street, young people queue outside Moya Matcha, one of a dozen places in Poland’s capital city that now cater to the craze for matcha drinks, fuelled in particular by TikTok postings about how cool it is to have iced matcha on a summer afternoon. Matcha fever has added a new layer to Warsaw’s café culture, which already embraced speciality coffee a few years ago when several smaller venues started challenging the big international franchises by using beans roasted locally and served by enthusiastic young baristas in various ways: AeroPress, V60, cold brew, Kalita or batch brew. At the same time, Poland’s coffee boom also reflects rising affluence in one of the EU’s fastest-growing economies. A speciality coffee now costs around 20 zlotys (€4.70) in many of Warsaw’s more fashionable venues, which would have been considered a fortune two decades ago when Poland joined the EU.
— Raphael Minder, Central Europe correspondent
In London, we have breached the era of the £5 flat white (and, sadly, the £8 pint), so drinking takeaway coffee can be added to the infinite list of pleasures that are more expensive than ever. The use of plant-based milk alternatives is on the decline, as the cost of living crisis and protein-mania on social media and supermarket shelves press on. For young people, matcha drinks — iced matcha, matcha lattes, etc — are extremely popular, thanks to TikTok aesthetics, wellness trends (it’s rich in antioxidants and amino acids) and the proliferation of Blank Street, a matcha-forward coffee chain that originated in Brooklyn. You’ll rarely see a twenty-something order something other than a virid drink (in contrast to the flat white-hardened rest of us).
— Niki Blasina, FT Globetrotter deputy editor
In Beirut, a new coffee-shop chain called Stories Coffee has become ubiquitous in just a few years. It’s just as popular among college students as it is with cigar-smoking dads. The baristas wear black and green uniforms, write your name (often incorrectly) on huge cups, and offer drinks like salted caramel blended iced coffees and thick, syrupy matcha lattes. Many see the café as the Lebanese answer to Starbucks, whose popularity in the small Mediterranean nation has declined over its perceived support of Israel’s war in Gaza.
— Malaika Kanaaneh Tapper, Beirut reporter
There is life (and probably better coffee) away from the Schuman roundabout in Brussels, which houses the EU institutions. But it is likely the place where the most coffee is consumed as tired officials seek regular caffeine hits, usually in the form of espresso or black coffee (occasionally cappuccino). A surprising number of Greek establishments (To Meli, Papillon, Cherry) means that espresso freddo — smooth iced coffee with just a little foam — is now a regular summer fixture. Given the amount of coffee drinking going on, the selection is not wildly hip, however. A second outpost of the trendy coffee shop Bouche has only recently opened. It serves pea milk, in case you’re over soy or almond.
— Alice Hancock, EU correspondent
The walk from Istanbul to Melbourne is little more than 10 minutes — if you are in Sarajevo, the charming capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A central area with a small bazaar and a few mosques is peppered with traditional street-side coffee places serving strong Turkish-style brew, roasted locally for a unique taste and served with a sugar cube. One of my favourites is Ministry of Ćejf, on a steep, hillside cobblestone alley next to the centre. If you’re insufficiently caffeinated, wander over to the increasingly popular Kawa, a spacious and modern new-wave coffee shop that would not be out of place in Melbourne, where you can mingle with local hipsters over a cortado. Though if you’re keen for local truth, head just opposite to the Hastahana skate park, where old folks hang out for a coffee — or a glass of raki — and the spirit of the old Yugoslavia still lives on. It’s a café that’s not even on Google; you have to go there and find it. IRL.
— Marton Dunai, Southeast Europe correspondent
Which city in your opinion is the best for coffee? Tell us in the comments below. And follow us on Instagram at @ftglobetrotter
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