For much of the modern coffee trade, roles were relatively fixed. Coffee was grown in producing countries and consumed elsewhere, with most value added far from where the coffee was produced. That structure has shaped pricing, power, and profit across the industry, often to the detriment of producers.
What’s happening across Asia suggests that model may no longer be as fixed as it once was. Coffee consumption is growing rapidly, and in several producing countries, domestic markets are developing alongside export trade. This doesn’t resolve long-standing imbalances on its own, but it does create new possibilities for how value is created and retained.
Japan: an established market that continues to adapt
Japan remains one of the world’s most developed coffee markets, combining high consumption with a long-standing focus on quality. Japanese roasters are closely associated with top-scoring coffees and continue to be major buyers at auctions such as Cup of Excellence and Best of Panama.
Coffee culture in Japan dates back to the late nineteenth century, shaped by kissatens that prioritised careful brewing, consistency, and calm, welcoming spaces. That approach later influenced many of the techniques adopted by the global specialty movement, including pour-over and siphon brewing.
Today, Japan’s coffee scene blends tradition with gradual change. Espresso-based and sweeter drinks are becoming more popular among younger consumers, while black coffee remains common among office workers. Since the pandemic, home consumption has increased, driving interest in freshness, lighter roasts, and a broader range of single origins. In response, more cafés are roasting in-house, using small-scale equipment to stay flexible and reduce waste.
Japan’s role is no longer just as a mature endpoint market, but as part of a wider and more dynamic Asian coffee landscape.
India: growth, scale, and rising confidence
India’s coffee sector is often described as emerging, and it is growing rapidly across both production and consumption. The overall market is expected to double by 2030, driven by urbanisation, rising incomes, and a young population that increasingly sees cafés as social and cultural spaces rather than simple retail outlets.
On the production side, India is already one of the world’s largest coffee producers, with exports rising sharply over the past decade. Shade-grown coffee, diverse climates, and strong institutional support from the Coffee Board of India have helped improve quality and sustainability, while encouraging farmers to move beyond purely commercial production.
Domestic consumption remains low by global standards, but that gap represents opportunity. As exposure to specialty coffee grows and international and local chains expand beyond major cities, India is starting to be recognised not just as a source of coffee, but as a future consumption market of real scale.
Despite this, it still receives relatively little attention in global coffee conversations, particularly compared to Latin America, Africa, or China.
Indonesia: a producer that has become a major consumer
Indonesia illustrates how quickly a coffee market can change. Once viewed almost exclusively as an origin, it is now the world’s fifth-largest coffee consumer, with domestic consumption reaching around 4.8 million bags.
Growth has been driven less by traditional specialty cafés and more by affordability and convenience. Sweet iced milk coffee, especially es kopi susu, made coffee accessible to a much wider audience. Delivery platforms, bottled RTD coffee, and dense networks of takeaway kiosks reinforced this shift, turning coffee into a daily habit, particularly among younger consumers.
At the same time, specialty cafés, micro-roasteries, and home brewing have spread beyond Jakarta into secondary cities and smaller towns. Indonesia now operates as both a major exporter and a significant domestic market, tightening local supply and increasing imports of both robusta and arabica.
This dual role has added complexity to the supply chain, but it has also made the market more resilient.
China: growing on both sides of the market
China’s influence on the coffee industry comes from its growth on both sides of the market. Consumption has expanded rapidly over the past decade, driven by urbanisation, rising disposable income, and the expansion of large domestic chains that have made coffee affordable and widely available. Coffee is no longer a niche product, but part of everyday routines in many cities.
Alongside this, China’s role as a producing origin is strengthening. Yunnan remains the centre of production, and while earlier output focused on volume, quality has improved steadily as farmers invest in better processing, traceability, and selective harvesting. Yunnan coffees are now finding a place in both domestic roasteries and international contracts.
This creates a feedback loop that is still relatively unusual in coffee. Growing domestic demand means higher-quality lots are no longer destined only for export, giving producers more choice and stronger incentives to invest in quality. Over time, this starts to change how value is created and retained, with more influence sitting closer to origin rather than exclusively in overseas consuming markets.
China is not simply following established specialty coffee models. By growing as both a consumer market and an origin at the same time, it is starting to influence how coffee is priced, positioned, and traded within the region and beyond.
Vietnam and the wider regional shift
Vietnam, the world’s second-largest coffee producer, is also seeing rapid growth in domestic consumption. Per capita intake remains well below Europe, but with a population exceeding 100 million and a fast-expanding café scene, demand is rising quickly. Both local and international chains are driving interest in better coffee and more developed menus.
Across Asia, similar patterns are appearing. Producing countries are no longer focused solely on exporting green coffee. They are roasting locally, building brands, and retaining more value within the region.
What this means for the global coffee trade
The global coffee industry is moving away from a simple division between producing and consuming countries. Asia increasingly occupies both roles at once.
As domestic markets grow within producing countries, competition at origin intensifies and long-standing supply assumptions are challenged. Roasting at origin becomes more viable, regional trade grows in importance, and new pathways emerge for value to stay closer to where coffee is produced. Influence does not shift evenly or automatically, but it begins to spread beyond the traditional centres of consumption.
If this trajectory continues, it raises important questions for Africa and Latin America as urbanisation accelerates there as well. Domestic consumption could play a much larger role in shaping future coffee economies, working alongside export markets rather than beneath them.
The centre of specialty coffee is no longer fixed. It is becoming more distributed, shaped by regional demand and local markets as much as by established consuming countries - and that redistribution has the potential to change how value, power, and opportunity are shared across the industry.
