Archive: Around Town

Do you love coffee?  According to a new Wallethub analysis the best coffee city in America is only a four hour drive from Lansing. New York City ranked #1 among 100 cities they looked at.  The analysis comes just in time for National Coffee Day (tomorrow, September 29th), and the financial Web site also provided a handy list of Coffee Day Deals, Freebies & Specials.

NYC even beat out Seattle, which ranks second, despite the fact that the Washington State city is a meca for coffee roasters, including Starbucks, Tully's Coffee, Caffé Vita Coffee Roasting Company, Espresso Vivace, Victrola Coffee Roasters, Lighthouse Roasters, Peet's Coffee, and Stumptown Coffee Roasters.

Of course there is no reason not to celebrate National Coffee Day right here with local brewers Ithaca Coffee Company in the Village of Lansing and Ithaca, and Gimme! Coffee in Ithaca, Trumansburg... and in the #1 coffee city as well.

In the United States, the leading coffee consuming nation,  coffee is an $18 billion industry.  According to E-Impoorts statistics, the average coffee drinker downs 3.1 cups of coffee each day.  There are more than 150 million coffee drinkers over age 18, and over 30 million of them drink specialty coffee like latte, cappuccino, espresso, or iced coffee drinks.  65% of all coffee is consumed with breakfast (or IS breakfast).  65% of coffee drinkers add milk and/or sugar to their coffee. 

Seattle also ranked #2 after Portland, OR for the most coffee and tea manufacturers per capita.  The top five cofee cities is rounded out with San Francisco, Portland, OR and Los Angeles.  The analysis also found that New York City has the highest number of affordable coffee shops and coffee shops and cafés rated 4.5 stars and above per capita.  Buffalo, the only other New York city in the rankings didn't fare at all well, ranking 71 out of 100.  The worst coffee city on the list is Toledo, OH.

Source: WalletHub

According to Tori Avey's 'The Caffeinated History of Coffee' on PBS, "Coffee plants reached the New World during the early 18th century, though the drink wasn’t really popular in America until the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when making the switch from tea to coffee became something of a patriotic duty. The Civil War and other conflicts that followed also helped to increase coffee consumption, as soldiers relied on the caffeine for a boost of energy. It may have started a bit later here, but Americans love coffee just as much as the rest of the world. Teddy Roosevelt himself is counted among America’s great coffee drinkers due to his rumored consumption of a gallon of coffee daily! Roosevelt is also said to have coined Maxwell House’s famous 'Good to the Last Drop' slogan after being served the coffee at Andrew Jackson’s historical home, the Hermitage, in Tennessee."

A National Coffee Association (NCA) poll shows the number of Americans who drink coffee is on the rise.  64% said they had had a cup the previous day in this year's poll, as opposed to 62% last year.

If you're traveling, Aurora, Co; Newark, NJ; Irving, TX; Fort Wayne, IN; and El Paso, TX are where you'll find the least expensive Cappuccino, with the highest prices in Birmingham, AL.  The lowest prices for a pack of coffee is found in Tulsa, OK, with the highest in Honolulu, HI.  Although it might be worth the higher price, because you would be in Hawaii!

Santa Ana, CA has the highest percentage of adult coffee drinkers, and Freemont, CA is where people spend the highest average dollar amount on coffee, with Cleveland, OH ranking #100 with the lowest average spending and #96 out of 100 for the lowest percent of adult coffee drinkers. 

For some people -- OK, most people if you count the ones who won't admit this -- what's coffee without donuts?  If you're a coffee and donuts fan you're in luck.  New York City also ranked #1 for having the most donut shops per capita, followed by Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and Fort Worth.

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