COFFEE is steaming ahead as the nation’s favourite hot drink — overtaking tea.
And experts have caused even more of a stir by saying that the good old British cuppa is now “outdated”.
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Sixty-three per cent of us regularly drink coffee, compared to just 59 per cent for tea, a Statista consumer survey found.
The takeover is spilling into supermarkets, where shoppers are spending much more on coffee than tea.
Food and drinks expert Aidy Smith said that a storm was brewing up in the industry thanks to the rise in high street coffee shops.
He told The Sunday Times: “Tea is becoming outdated. While the country does clearly still embrace it, coffee just has an added dash of excitement.
“Hop on to Google Maps and type in ‘coffee shop’ versus ‘tea shop’ to see the remarkable differences.
There’s also so much you can do with coffee.
The ability to serve it in so many ways with so many flavour variations and such creativity has led to it being embraced on such a high level.”
Coffee is said to have come to England in 1650.
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It beat tea by less than a decade — with the first dated reference in the UK from 1658 when a London newspaper ran a story about a “China drink”.
Tea bags, which are now used in 96 per cent of brews, did not appear until the start of the 20th century.
