Americans making more coffee at home

Daily coffee consumption in the United States was steady this year compared to 2008, while the number of people making their coffee at home rose, the National Coffee Association of U.S.A. said on Saturday.

Data from the 2009 National Coffee Drinking Trends survey, which polled more than 3,000 adults in the United States by telephone in January and February, was released at the NCA's annual convention in Boca Raton, Florida.

"Consumers still see coffee as an integral part of their everyday lives," NCA chief Robert Nelson said.

"Even if economic conditions cause some to alter their coffee choices, they are nonetheless continuing to enjoy coffee at levels very much on par with recent years," he said in a release.

Preliminary data showed 54 percent of adults drank coffee beverages daily, compared to 55 percent a year ago. With the margin of error plus or minus 1.6 percentage points, the NCA viewed consumption as statistically flat.

Of the people who said they had drunk coffee the previous day, 83 percent said they had made it at home -- up 5 points compared with year-ago figures.

"The coffee industry as a whole doesn't seem to be suffering at all, seems to be recession resilient," said Mark DiDomenico, director of Customer and Consumer Insights for Sara Lee Foodservice.

"Gourmet coffee is where we saw some of the decline," said DiDomenico, who presented the survey results on the convention's final day.

Daily consumption of gourmet coffee, which includes espresso-based drinks, fell to 14 percent, back to levels seen in 2007, he said. In 2008, this category was at 17 percent.

Another area of decline was from people who said they had drunk coffee within the past week or year. Coffee consumption in these groups fell 3 points to 63 percent and 77 percent respectively.

Those numbers suggest some of the less-frequent coffee drinkers might have stopped, the study said.

The NCA survey has been conducted since 1950 and is the longest available statistical series of consumer coffee drinking patterns, DiDomenico said.