How Ireland's café and coffee culture has changed

Over roughly the past decade, Ireland has gone from a tea-drinking country where coffee often meant instant to one where specialty coffee is expected in towns of every size. Irish roasters now supply cafés nationwide, the flat white became the everyday order, cafés became places to work and meet as much as to drink, and menus widened to include plant milks, cold brew and matcha.

Tea has not gone anywhere. But the café has become one of the main places Irish people meet, work and spend a morning, and the coffee in it has improved enormously.

From a tea country to a coffee culture

For generations, Ireland was firmly a tea-drinking country. Coffee existed, but at home it was usually instant, and in many towns a good espresso was hard to find.

Several things changed that:

• Travel and migration. Irish people who spent time in Australia, Italy and elsewhere came home expecting better coffee, and people who moved to Ireland brought their own expectations.
• A new generation. Younger people adopted the café as a social space in a way their parents mostly had not.
• Specialty roasters. Irish roasters began buying, roasting and serving coffee with real care, and training the baristas who went on to open their own cafés.
• Remote work. Working from home sent people looking for somewhere else to sit with a laptop for a few hours.

How did Irish specialty coffee grow?

Dublin led the way. Roasters and cafés such as 3fe, founded by Colin Harmon, Coffee Angel, founded by Karl Purdy, and Proper Order Coffee Co. helped build the specialty scene, and their influence spread through training, wholesale and the baristas who learned with them.

It did not stay in Dublin. Cork's Badger & Dodo and other Irish roasters, including Cloud Picker, now supply independent cafés across the country. The result is that good coffee in a county town or a village is no longer a surprise; it is expected.

What changed about the coffee itself

Specialty cafés now talk about coffee the way wine is talked about:

• Origin. Single-origin coffees named by country, region or farm.
• Tasting notes. Chocolate, berries, citrus.
• Processing. Washed, natural and honey-processed beans taste different.
• Brewing. Espresso, filter, pour-over and batch brew, each suited to different beans.
• Seasonality. Rotating coffees that change with harvests in growing countries.

This has not made coffee snobbish so much as better. Understanding a little about it makes it easier to recognise good coffee wherever you find it.

Cafés as community spaces

As other places to gather became fewer in many towns, the café filled some of the gap. Cafés are now a third space: neither home nor work, but somewhere to meet friends, hold a first date, run a book club or bring a pram.

The atmosphere is different from a pub. You can stay longer, drink one flat white over an hour, and there is no pressure to keep ordering rounds. For daytime socialising, fancy a coffee has replaced fancy a pint for many people.

Independent cafés have leaned into this, with distinctive rooms that reflect their neighbourhood. Some combine coffee with food shopping, as The Fumbally in Dublin has, or with work and meeting space.

Working from cafés

Remote and hybrid work made the café a part-time office for many people. Cafés responded in different ways: some welcome laptops all day, some ask people to keep tables free at lunchtime, and some prefer to stay laptop-free. Cafés like Kaph and Network in Dublin became known as places people work from.

If you work from cafés, the etiquette is simple: buy something every so often, give up a big table when it gets busy, and respect a café that would rather keep lunch for eating.

How did the pandemic change Irish cafés?

When cafés could not seat customers in 2020, the ones that survived adapted quickly:

• Takeaway hatches and outdoor collection points
• Beans and brewing equipment sold for home, often with advice on brewing
• Collection and delivery, with ordering ahead becoming normal

Some of that stayed. More cafés have outdoor seating than before. People drink better coffee at home, so café visits are more about the experience, the company and the change of scene. Ordering ahead and paying by phone became ordinary. And many people chose to support local independent cafés during the lockdowns and kept doing so.

The trends that defined the decade

The flat white

Espresso with a thin layer of steamed milk, stronger and less foamy than a cappuccino. It arrived in Ireland's specialty cafés and became the default order, eventually appearing on chain menus too.

Plant milks

Not long ago, soy was the only alternative and often only on request. Now oat, almond, coconut and others are standard, and many people order oat milk by preference rather than need. Baristas have had to learn how each one foams and tastes.

Cold brew and iced coffee

Ireland's weather made cold coffee seem unlikely, but iced lattes and cold brew are now on many menus year-round, especially popular with younger customers.

Is matcha popular in Ireland?

Yes. Matcha, the powdered Japanese green tea, has gone from almost unknown to a regular on café menus around the country, as a latte, iced or in baking. People choose it for a different kind of caffeine, for its taste and for its colour. Good cafés source decent matcha and whisk it properly. Its arrival shows how far the café has moved from being only a coffee shop.

Latte art and photographs

Hearts and rosettas on flat whites became a sign of a skilled barista, and photographs of beautiful coffee on social media became free advertising for cafés.

Sustainability

Reusable cups, discounts for bringing your own, compostable takeaway cups and more information about where beans come from and how farmers are paid have become normal in specialty cafés.

Independents and chains

The big chains brought espresso drinks to many Irish towns before independents arrived, and they still offer convenience and consistency. But independent cafés now lead on quality and character, with distinct ways of standing out:

• Their own roast or a close partnership with an Irish roaster
• Baking done in-house or by a local bakery
• Rooms with local character rather than a brand template
• Knowing regulars by name and order
• Room to experiment: pour-over, cold brew on tap, guest coffees

Running an independent café is not easy. Rent, wages and the price of coffee have all risen, and good baristas are in demand. The cafés that last tend to combine excellent coffee with a strong local following.

Where Irish café culture is going

Nobody can predict it precisely, but the direction is clear: more good coffee outside the cities, more cafés that double as work and community spaces, more ordering ahead and paying by phone, more interest in where coffee comes from, and more drinks on the menu that are not coffee at all.

Finding good cafés with Mosey

People on Mosey can tag a place for Specialty Coffee when they rate it, and every rating carries photographs, so you can see the coffee and the baking before you go. Dublin's great coffee page lists the places people tagged most. For the café you visit most, rewards count your visits when you pay through Mosey or tap at the counter, and some cafés run memberships. If you want to learn, some courses cover coffee cupping and barista training.

For more, see our guide to the best cafés in Ireland.

Try it on Mosey

Find the cafés near you that people rate for coffee, join the rewards at your regular, and rate the next flat white or matcha that impresses you.