# We're still a tiny minority!



## vintagecigarman (Aug 10, 2009)

I've just done a market research survey for a leading UK research company, and one of the questions asked what types of coffee I drank at home.

The emerging findings from the survey (presumably from a balanced cross-section) make very interesting reading.

It appears that over 50% still own up to using instant, with ground fresh beans being found in only 31% of households where coffee is drunk.

But here's the rub: whole beans only reach 7.5% of coffee drinkers! I can only presume that they don't realise what they're missing - it was certainly the case with me for a long time.


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## bono141 (Mar 1, 2011)

Well 92.5% of the population can't be wrong surely......oh wait.........maybe they can.........In that case, lets not tell them about how much nicer freshly ground coffee at home can be (it leaves more tasty beans for us!)


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## Glenn (Jun 14, 2008)

I'm surprised the number is as high as that. Earlier studies have found even less takeup so the message must (slowly) be getting through


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## profspudhed (Mar 18, 2011)

im not surprised at all, its easy to be fooled into thinking instant coffee is somehow faster or easier, but when you get used to a proper method you can have a decent brew in almost the same time frame with a much nicer result, even my crappy coffee skills have converted 2 of my friends so far (infact im picking up some beans for one of them from brown and green when i go down later) ive also taken the press to work, when theres a cup left in the pot i offer it to someone else so they can taste proper coffee in the hope they may convert too. i can deal with a decent instant, hell i drank it for the past 20 years (always had a press too but not used every day, also used to have a commercial filter machine, wish i hadnt left it when i moved) that starbucks instant stuff, alta rica etc are passable, but the happy shopper stuff thats come into the canteen may as well be bisto, must say i cant really see myself ever buying another jar of nescafe though


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## 20Eyes (Mar 16, 2011)

vintagecigarman said:


> with ground fresh beans being found in only 31% of households where coffee is drunk.


Similar to Glenn, I'm fairly surprised at that number. Almost a third of all households where coffee is drunk have ground beans? That definitely doesn't mirror what I know about my general social circle.

Almost everyone I know, including those who frequently buy and enjoy proper coffee drinks, pretty much falls over when I've told them what the price of my grinder was. When I tell them I also home roast some of my beans, it's usually met with the same reponse... 'You're mad'.


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## vintagecigarman (Aug 10, 2009)

Perhaps my wording was a bit confusing - it 's meant to imply pre-ground beans, as opposed to instant.


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## profspudhed (Mar 18, 2011)

ah i see, but still, i know i move in decidedly low income circles but ive only ever known one person to own a proper grinder and thats my current boss, who fills it with the oldest beans in the world, i dont think he has put anymore in it since the hopper was filled in nov/dec last year! one problem may actually be, as it currently is for me, the cost of a decent grinder, the second is that a great majority of people never get the chance to try decent coffee so dont know what theyre missing out on, there just arent enough cafes selling decent coffee and way too many starbucks and costas


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## MikeHag (Mar 13, 2011)

A minority inside a minority


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## vintagecigarman (Aug 10, 2009)

I also suspect that, in wanting to look upwardly mobile, a lot of instant afficionados will also claim to have real beans in their house. I bet a lot of them do have a packet slowly maturing in a kitchen cupboard, but seldom use them, making instant instead - though God know why.

What is pleasant to note, however, is the increasing number of 'fresh' beans on sale in supermarkets. Perhaps things are changing for the better? I know that I'm old, but when I was young, coffee was a bit of a luxury in our household, and my mother used to buy single-serving sachets of Nescafe. I hadn't tasted real coffee until I left home for Uni.


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## profspudhed (Mar 18, 2011)

Guess I was alucky kid, having fallen in love with instant as a very young child I got a press for xmas, then managed to find a grinder on the local asylum summer fayre (it was clear acrylic ans served me for years til I got an old braun blade one) I even had beans which was amazing in a tiny country townin the early 90s.

Must say I'm surprised to see us behind japan, I didn't think coffee went down that well in the land of the rising sun


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## MikeHag (Mar 13, 2011)

What we need is High Fearnley-Wittingstall to run a campaign. Forget the Fish Fight, what about the Bean Brawl


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