Coffee Has Become a Habit, Shops Have Tripled — and the Fastest-Growing Channel Right Now Is on the Sidewalk

The question rarely asked in Indonesia's coffee industry is not “is the market growing” — everyone knows it is. The right question is: in which segment is the growth happening, how fast, and what does it mean for each player?

Let me start with the most quoted and least digested figure. The Ministry of Industry recorded national coffee consumption in 2025 at 288 thousand tonnes, equivalent to 1.03 kg per capita, with a projected market growth of 3.61 percent per year through 2029. It sounds administrative. But behind it sits something worth noting: those 288 thousand tonnes are pure domestic absorption — and as our previous report showed, domestic demand is one of the factors keeping upstream prices high while global prices fall. The domestic market is no longer a complement to exports. It is the foundation.

Now to consumer behavior, because a market is not a number — a market is a habit.

Jakpat's 2025 survey of 1,002 respondents found that 46 percent of consumers drink coffee every day. Not every week. Every day. The favorite time is not the morning, as the Western stereotype goes, but the afternoon (35 percent) and after breakfast (34 percent). And the primary purpose is gathering and conversation (44 percent), not simply seeking caffeine for focus (34 percent).

This small detail matters. Coffee has become social infrastructure — a meeting place, a reason to gather, a filler of idle hours. But caution is needed here: the habit of an afternoon coffee with friends at a café, and the habit of brewing instant coffee at home before leaving for work, are two different habits — different places, different functions, and they do not replace each other. The Jakpat survey does record them in a single product-preference table: instant milk coffee consumed regularly by 53 percent of respondents, instant black coffee 43 percent, iced milk coffee from cafés 28 percent. These numbers are often read as if there were a “ladder” — from instant up to café. I read it differently. The three figures describe three different drinking occasions, not three levels of consumer maturity. There is a home market, there is a café market, and both are large in their own way.

And the café market itself is changing shape.

The Ministry of Industry recorded that the number of coffee shops has grown almost threefold in the last three years — supported by an extreme demographic structure, with more than 53 percent of Indonesia's population being Gen Z and millennials. But within the barista-brewed channel itself, a sub-channel is currently the fastest growing: the modern mobile coffee cart.

Cimigo's October 2025 survey — 247 respondents, a small but sharp sample — found that 49 percent of consumers drink barista-brewed coffee, with purchases averaging 4.5 times per week. Within the barista-brewed channel specifically: coffee shops remain the leading channel (88 percent), minimarkets 48 percent, and modern mobile coffee 47 percent.

One caution before reading that figure further: mobile coffee is not a replacement for the coffee shop. The person who spends two hours at a café over a meeting does not move to the sidewalk; conversely, a consumer who needs a quick barista-brewed coffee on the go often has no time to enter a café. Mobile coffee serves a drinking occasion that was previously unmet — it does not steal customers from cafés. The two grow in different occasions.

So why has mobile coffee grown so fast? The answer is not about taste. The strongest reason consumers choose it is availability — 95 percent. Followed by affordable price (82 percent), practicality (77 percent), and taste only in fourth place (51 percent). The order is telling: found, cheap, fast — and only then tasty.

For mobile coffee operators, and for roasteries and suppliers who supply them, the implications are immediate. Raw material must be consistent from batch to batch, recipes fast to execute, and margins sustainable at an affordable selling price. A chocolate-nut-caramel blend profile that stays stable with milk is no longer a style choice — it is a segment requirement. A B2B package of roasted beans, standard recipes, and training becomes a product in its own right. And tiered pricing across segments (café, mobile, retail) needs to be designed from the start, because price sensitivity differs.

A methodological note — important to read before quoting: Ministry of Industry data is national industrial statistics, while Jakpat and Cimigo are consumer surveys with limited samples (1,002 and 247 respondents). Survey figures are appropriate for reading behavioral direction, not for precise population estimates. For investment decisions, these surveys need to be complemented with primary data.

Conclusion

Indonesia's coffee market is growing not because Indonesians are changing their tastes, but because coffee drinking is becoming more routine — and every drinking occasion has its own channel. Home consumers remain loyal to instant. Café-goers still come to gather. And consumers on the move now have a barista-brewed option that did not exist before. What has changed is not who wins, but how many drinking occasions can now be served.