International Coffee Day
Next: October 1, 2027
Buy someone the first cup.
The story
Where it comes from
International Coffee Day was launched by the International Coffee Organization on 1 October 2015 in Milan, during the World Expo, to unite the many national coffee days and to draw attention to the people who grow the bean, most of them smallholders. In March 2026 the UN General Assembly made it a UN day (resolution 80/248). Coffee itself was first cultivated in Yemen in the 15th century from plants native to Ethiopia, and reached Europe through Venice around 1600.
How it's celebrated
Cafés give away or discount a cup, roasters run cuppings and origin talks, and the ICO uses the day to campaign for fair prices for farmers. In Malaysia it is a day for kopi in a kopitiam as much as for a flat white; in Vietnam, for cà phê sữa đá; in Ethiopia, for a coffee ceremony that takes an hour and is the point.
Did you know
- Around two billion cups of coffee are drunk every day.
- Brazil has been the largest producer for more than 150 years; Vietnam is second, largely in robusta.
- Finland drinks the most coffee per person, about twelve kilograms a year.
- The word 'coffee' comes via Turkish kahve and Italian caffè from the Arabic qahwa.
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