Boomers Can't Stand These 12 Coffee Trends (And We Don't Blame Them)

Ever since an Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi first noticed his goats staying up all night after eating cherries, from what would eventually be discovered as a coffee tree (or so the legend goes), coffee has been an indelible indulgence in human culture and society. And as such, the caffeinated beverage, or how people drink it, has become a kind of reflection of different cultures at particular times in history.

It even reflects the characteristics of specific generations. This certainly feels true now, in a time when four age groups make up most of the world: baby boomers, Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z. The oldest of those, boomers, are, unsurprisingly, often the most baffled when it comes to the behaviors of the other gens — especially when it comes to drinking coffee.

And you know what? Sometimes the boomers have a point. There are contemporary coffee habits that, regardless of what demographic you belong to, seem a bit absurd. To many a boomer, the artisanal coffee-shop world of today is a hub of confusing concoctions and bewildering behavior — either reflective of what young people want or what young people are told they want. Here are 12 coffee trends that boomers can't stand and, heck, we can't blame them. See if you agree with any.

It might seem like iced coffee is a newfangled, millennial bastardization of the beverage. But that's not actually true. This was happening more than 500 years ago on the Arabian peninsula (where it's known to get hot). As coffee became more popular in the 1600s and 1700s in Europe, chilled coffee drinks were also served in the burgeoning coffee houses.

As far as the U.S. goes, the introduction of iced tea at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis prompted iced coffee to become a thing — and it would be available to diner and coffee shop patrons throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Apparently, not all boomers noticed the influx of the chilled drink.

Meanwhile, according to Mintel market research, around two-thirds of millennials drink iced coffee and about 20% of Gen Xers do the same, whereas only one out of 10 boomers want frozen cubes in their joe. Boomers aren't worried about cold brew mistakes that might leave your coffee bitter. They just avoid that scene altogether.

Boomers are a fascinating bunch, what with their love of Kevin Costner and local news. They're also fascinating in the ways of coffee. Yes, caffeine is often a fundamental part of their day, with about 65% of boomers using it daily to wake up, according to the National Coffee Association. The thing is, they have a substantial leaning toward ye old drip coffee above all else. Even (gasp) instant coffee.

Thus, a coffee shop menu that boasts 47 varieties of some kind of espresso-based drink will seem like an invitation to palpitations for your run-of-the-mill boomer. Not to say that a boomer-aged individual doesn't enjoy a demitasse on occasion, but a cortado every day? An americano in the late afternoon, only several hours before bedtime? What is this bunkum?

Granted, there's a completely understandable reason for this: Caffeine can cause a number of issues as people age. Therefore, a turbo-charged dose of boing-boingo syrup may not be the most medically friendly option for a boomer. It should be said, however, that a shot of espresso technically has less total caffeine than an 8-ounce cup of drip coffee — even though the per-ounce concentration is higher in espresso. But many coffee shops will make their espresso drinks with double shots automatically. As soon as you go doppio, you leap to the caffeine content of a mug of drip.

What boomers appreciate (along with a lot of us, honestly) is the comfort of routine, familiarity, and simplicity. This is apparent in the way many boomers approach cooking: straightforward, no-nonsense, with barely any additions like salt and pepper. Just eat, don't think, food is fuel, consume and move on.

This tracks for coffee habits as well. For boomers, its all about function. Coffee is a means to an end, period, full stop, enough of this frou-frou already. Why sit and dwell too much on something as ephemeral as a cup of coffee? You can't take it with you when you die. (Hey, boomers can get morbid.)

Do you really need to make sure your macchiato is posed in the perfect sunlight to take a pic? At this point, is anyone seeing a post like that and going, "My god, look at that coffee!" Boomers may get grumpy about their coffee habits, but it doesn't mean they're always wrong. Maybe we all need to do a little more of just consuming and moving on.

Boomer or not, there are days when you just need a coffee without having to think about your coffee. You had a late night, a rough morning, an awful week, a trying month, a steamroller of a year, and you just want to walk into your local cafe and get handed a cup of self-belief juice.

A barista taking 15 minutes to methodically craft your coffee elixir is not always welcome. For boomers, it's almost never welcome. Whereas the likes of Gen Z are fans of innovation and experimentation, boomers prefer to go with traditional over trendy. This may sound like a stereotyping of the crusty old folks yelling at clouds, but National Coffee Data Trends research does back this up: More than half of Americans in their sixties and up prefer coffee on the conventional side.

Like this absolute gem of a boomer Facebooker (easily boomers' fave social media site, by the way): "I'm 73 years old and still remember we had two kinds of coffee, regular and decaf, I don't buy coffee out because I don't even know what to order, and in some cases I just can't pronounce it." So precious. They're like the cranky cat you just want to adopt.

This is probably (undoubtedly) the boomer sentiment on this list that's most relatable. There's a reason boomers like to drink coffee they make at home — and, no, it's not because there's a "Murder, She Wrote" channel that airs on their smart TV stations (at least not entirely). It's because it's cost-effective.

"I am still drinking coffee out of my own coffee pot instead of paying $7 for nasty stuff at Starbucks," commented an older Facebooker. Boomers appreciate value for their money. And for anyone that patronizes coffee shops on the regular, it's difficult to argue that any of us are really getting a true bang for our buck — even at a place you love.

Coffee prices are at record highs, for numerous reasons. This has an effect on shoppers in supermarkets as much as regulars at the cafes. It might be a good idea, if you haven't already, to adopt the boomer mentality and save what probably amounts to hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year on to-go orders.

Speaking of blowing hundreds and thousands a year on to-go coffee orders, let's go back to the aforementioned boomer habit of having drip coffee at home. Not only is it money-saving behavior, but it's a habit that's almost conditioned into the boomer. According to a report by Statista, over 80% of baby boomers mostly enjoy their coffee at home, with less than 5% heading to a coffee shop on a regular basis.

Those percentages funnel down accordingly with the generations. By the time you get to Gen Z, they're practically living on to-go joe. According to a three-month sample size in Coffee Business Intelligence, 75% of Zoomers had ordered coffee through a mobile app. They also go for, not only flavored coffee (a boomer whuh?), but ready-to-drink coffee products (a boomer why?).

There's no reason to abandon the boomer approach to an at-home coffee experience. For one, there's a level of peaceful domesticity that we could all use. For two, there are so many options now for retail coffee that you can still get a quality brew (unlike the limited grocery store options with which boomers came of age). For three, and it bears repeating, your bank account will thank you.

Now it's time for the requisite clash of generations when it comes to social media. Granted, boomers are much more social media savvy than they're sometimes made out to be (or at least the regularity in which they use it is often underestimated). Remember, this is the generation that begat the generation that started social media (and there's even a term coined for the preponderance of social-media forward boomers: the silver tsunami).

Still, the boomer coffee drinker, by and large, eschews digital relationships with their local coffee establishments, in contrast with the younger set. First off, many boomers, as mentioned, prefer Facebook over something like Instagram or TikTok. That in itself negates their connection with popular barista influencers — some of whom have amassed a staggering amount of followers.

A bit of this boomer antipathy toward following baristas on the socials might also extend from the generation's skepticism over brand obsession or overwrought exposure on digital platforms — fair or not. After all, would a boomer go on social media to watch videos made by their dry cleaner or FedEx guy? Heck, would any of us?

This might not just be a boomer plea. The world seems at a tipping point when it comes to technology versus direct human interaction. And even the actual IRL conversations you see on the streets can seem performative. (We're talking to you, Gen Z sunglasses guy sitting at the picnic table outside the bar, overly gesticulating your banal pop culture opinion. Yeah, you.) It's easy to say we're all to blame for this social dissolution ... so we'll just say that for now. 

Boomers have long valued the social aspect of coffee drinking. How many famous scenes in movies and television shows from years past are just two characters having a cup of coffee together? The idea of isolating yourself with giant headphones and a laptop, while being in a social environment like a coffee shop, just does not jive with the boomer ethos.

Even if a boomer doesn't go to a coffee shop with company, many are more than happy to start up a friendly conversation with a fellow patron. But here's a riddle: If a coffee-drinking boomer offers a greeting to a nearby Gen Zer, does it make a sound? The former might be better off drinking coffee in Europe for that kind of impromptu connection.

We mentioned that coffee was important to the boomer species. For folks of a certain age, a cup of joe is not only a utilitarian feature of their day — waking them up, getting the gears turning, helping them take on organizing the garage — but a ritualistic one. Even for those who either don't want to or just can't ingest caffeine, they'll often opt for decaf instead of abstaining altogether (although even decaf coffee has trace amounts of caffeine). In other words, coffee is a boomer non-negotiable.

So, what's this they hear about coffee fasts? As in, removing coffee from your life for a period of time? Pish posh. After all, according to the National Coffee Association, 70% of boomers drink coffee every day, which outdoes all the other existing generations. And many boomers tend to have multiple cups throughout the day. They may not be large cups, but the frequency is certainly there.

Younger generations, on the other hand, will sometimes treat coffee almost like alcohol, in that a break needs to happen every now and then. There are also a number of non-coffee drinks that Gen Z likes, such as matcha and chai, that sort of mimic the coffee drinking experience without any of the actual black stuff. Fine, just leave boomers out of the fasts. Certainly according to this one on Facebook: "No coffee? that would be the end of the civilized world..chaos!"

Ah, the technology hydra has reared its many heads once again to torment the older generation. Unlike social media, however, the QR code seems to be a much more puzzling, exasperating, and soul-crushing experience for the boomers. And many of us can't blame them for hating this growing menu trend, because we hate it too.

Having to capture a QR code in order to access a menu and even order — whether at a coffee shop or a restaurant — is one of those anti-advancements that can happen as a result of technological progress. And boomers' dislike of the QR code is only growing each year.

Restaurant Dive reported on a survey by William Blair in 2023 that 65% of people over aged 60 were not down with QR code menus or ordering. This was borne out by National Restaurant Association data that said only 46% of boomers were QR-amenable. As far as least complicated methods of ordering a coffee, it's fair to say that walking up to a counter, glancing at a printed list, and briefly telling a human what you want is pretty hard to beat.

Now we're at a proper societal flash point, aren't we? The tipping debate. For those of us who are Gen Z, millennials, and Gen Xers, it's become a hotly contested phenomenon. But for boomers who come from an age where tipping, as generous as it may be, was only for certain arenas of life — namely sit-down restaurants, hotel staff, taxi drivers, pizza deliveries, and the odd furniture mover — this can be straight-up flummoxing.

In today's world, that digital tablet gets turned around at all manner of shops, imploring those paying to make a stark choice: You can tip in these three or four ways, or you can choose, of your own volition, not to be generous. (By the way, anyone else feel like it takes two or three taps to fully activate the "NO TIP" tab?)

A survey from Bankrate revealed that 63% of Americans have a negative outlook on tipping (with boomers alone at nearly 70%), and 41% claim it's gotten totally out of control. Listen, we all want to reward the hard-working people that help service our daily lives ... but when does it start becoming extortion?

You're now at the end of this list, which might mean you're feeling like an actual boomer at heart. It was probably easier than you thought getting behind several of these gripes, which may force you to begrudgingly give boomers — problematic, outdated, relict boomers — some credit. You also may or may not want to admit that this last entry is another old fogey-ism you concur with.

True, is there anything more grouchily aging than complaining about how loud the music is somewhere? Many of us non-boomers will even tolerate awful music blasting directly into our cerebellums before we think of making an audible complaint about it. But this is a safe space, and here you can nod along without fear of judgment.

The music in some coffee shops has certainly gotten louder, and we're all paying the price for it. Boomers, specifically, with their already diminished hearing, have taken to their favorite social media site, Facebook, and written scathing blogs to rail against this auditory injustice. If local coffee shops want to compete against national chains, they might want to heed this boomer-slash-everyone else advice: Turn down Mumford & Sons!