Coffee nation

This is the story of two drugs: caffeine, and sugar. Pakistanis consume both, but the proportions in which we consume them – and the reasons for doing so – are shifting, and they are shifting because of the changing nature of the what Pakistanis do for a living.

This is the story of the journey from doodh patti to black coffee.

We should also confess to something: our headline is premature. Coffee in Pakistan is still a very niche phenomenon. How niche? For every cup of coffee consumed in Pakistan, we consume 735 cups of tea, based on Profit’s analysis of data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics on the country’s imports of both commodities for the year 2024, the latest year for which complete figures are available.

But in markets, while size matters, sometimes momentum can matter more, and the consumption of coffee is rising sharply. Just ten years ago, in 2014, the difference was 1,900 cups of tea for every cup of coffee, and in 2004, the difference was even more massive: almost 14,000 cups of tea for every cup of coffee.

From a very, very low base, coffee is clearly gaining share.