Six out of 10 American adults
drink a cup of coffee every day.
And many of them come from Starbucks,
Dunkin',
Tim Hortons,
or McDonald's:
four of the most popular coffee spots in the country.
But where in the world does all of this coffee come from?
Starbucks sources its coffee from more than 30 countries
in the three major growing regions of the world.
The company's breakfast and house blends
come from Latin America.
And their popular Pike Place roast
comes from Colombia and Brazil.
After sourcing the beans,
Starbucks roasts them in the US
and then distributes them
among more than 14,000 stores nationwide.
And then there's Dunkin'.
Like Starbucks,
much of Dunkin's coffee comes from Latin America.
These countries include Brazil,
Colombia,
El Salvador,
Guatemala,
Honduras,
Mexico,
Nicaragua,
and Peru.
Once the beans arrive stateside,
Dunkin' roasts them in one of seven facilities
and then brews them to serve
at more than 9,000 stores across the country.
And next, we have Tim Hortons.
Tim Hortons' coffee comes from several countries
in Asia and Latin America,
including Brazil and Colombia,
and, occasionally, they'll source beans from Africa.
The company then roasts the beans
in New York and Ontario
and brews them to serve at around 700 stores in the US.
And finally, we've got McCafé.
That's McDonald's coffee brand, which launched in 2009.
McCafé sources a lot of its beans from Colombia and Brazil,
and the rest comes mostly from other countries
in Latin America.
Those beans are then brought back to the US
for roasting and serving
at one of the chain's 14,000 locations nationwide.
If there's one thing these companies have in common,
it's that they source beans
from a lot of different countries.
But why?
Well, it starts with flavor.
Geography can actually greatly affect
the taste of coffee beans.
Colombian coffee, for example,
tends to be sweet and nutty,
whereas coffee from Indonesia often tastes more earthy.
And the second reason is risk,
which there's a lot of when it comes to growing coffee.
Droughts and bug infestations, for example,
are common and can easily decimate a country's harvest.
So companies source from different countries
to prevent a sudden drop in supply.
And the third and final reason
is that companies want to ensure a more steady supply.
You see, beans are ready for harvest at different times
in different parts of the world.
So by sourcing coffee from several different countries,
companies will always have a steady source of beans to buy.
And that's a good thing,
because Americans without coffee
are not people you want to face.