If you are holding a cup of coffee right now, you have a good reason to enjoy it a little more today. October 1 is International Coffee Day, and this year it is bigger than before.
Coffee lovers have celebrated the day since 2015. It was started by the International Coffee Organization, a group of countries that grow or buy coffee. But until this year, it was not an official United Nations day. That changed in March, when the UN General Assembly agreed to make October 1 International Coffee Day. So 2026 is the first year the UN is celebrating it.
At the UN offices in Geneva, Switzerland, there will be speeches, a discussion with people from the coffee business, and, best of all, a coffee tasting. This year’s theme puts the farmers first: “Celebrating Coffee, Honouring the People Behind Every Cup.”
That matters, because most of the world’s coffee comes from small farms. According to the UN, up to 25 million farming families grow about 80 per cent of the world’s coffee. Many of them live in developing countries, and they often earn only a small part of the money that coffee makes. Brazil, Vietnam, and Colombia grow the most coffee. In some African countries, coffee is a very big part of the economy. In Ethiopia, for example, coffee made up more than a quarter of all the goods the country sold abroad in 2024.
Ethiopia is also where coffee plants first grew, and one popular story explains how people discovered them. A goat herder named Kaldi was out with his animals when he saw them eat some red berries from a bush. That night, the goats were so full of energy that they would not sleep. Nobody knows if Kaldi really existed. What we do know is that people in Yemen were roasting and brewing coffee hundreds of years ago. From there, it spread to Europe and then around the world.
In Canada, coffee is a big part of daily life. A study from the Coffee Association of Canada found that 71 per cent of Canadians drank coffee the day before they were asked. After tap water, coffee is the drink Canadians have most often. This week, the association also said that the coffee business in Canada supports about 215,000 jobs, from roasters to baristas.
“Coffee is a small, everyday treat for many Canadians,” said Robert Carter, the association’s president.
If you want to join in, some cafés offer deals or small gifts on the day, so it is worth asking at your favourite coffee shop. You could also try a new kind of coffee, or buy a bag of beans with a fair trade label, which is meant to help farmers get a fairer price.
Or you can simply do what millions of people do every morning anyway: make a cup, sit down for a minute, and enjoy it.
Sources: United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Daily Coffee News, Coffee Association of Canada
Most mornings, coffee is fuel rather than an occasion. You make it half-awake, drink it while scrolling through your messages, and find the mug stone cold on your desk an hour later. Today deserves a little more attention, though. October 1 is International Coffee Day, and for the first time, the United Nations is officially celebrating it too.
The day itself is not new. The International Coffee Organization, which brings together coffee-producing and coffee-importing countries, launched it in 2015. The big change came this March in New York, when member states at the UN General Assembly signed off on a resolution making the day official. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN’s farming agency, has been asked to help run the celebrations from now on.
The first UN celebration takes place in Geneva, where the FAO has teamed up with diplomats from Indonesia, Rwanda, and Türkiye to host a morning of speeches and panel talks. Sensibly, it ends with a coffee tasting. The theme is “Celebrating Coffee, Honouring the People Behind Every Cup,” and the people in question are mostly small farmers.
According to the UN, up to 25 million farming households produce roughly 80 per cent of the world’s coffee, usually on small plots in developing countries. These farmers tend to shoulder much of the risk, from bad harvests to falling prices, while seeing only a sliver of the money their beans eventually earn. For some economies, the stakes are enormous. FAO figures show that in 2024, coffee accounted for nearly 28 per cent of Ethiopia’s goods exports, and about a fifth of Uganda’s and Burundi’s.
Ethiopia’s attachment to coffee runs deep. Legend has it that a goat herder named Kaldi first noticed the plant’s effects when his animals became strangely lively after nibbling its red berries. Whether or not Kaldi ever existed, the drink went on to spread through Yemen and the Middle East before winning over Europe and, eventually, just about everywhere else.
Canadians, for their part, take their coffee seriously. The Coffee Association of Canada has been asking people about their drinking habits since 1998, and its latest numbers show that 71 per cent of Canadians drank coffee the day before they were asked. Only tap water is more popular. On Tuesday, the association added a much bigger number to the conversation: by its count, coffee is worth $34.7 billion to the Canadian economy and supports some 215,000 jobs.
“Coffee is a small, everyday treat for many Canadians, but the industry behind that cup has a significant economic footprint,” said Robert Carter, the association’s president.
Marking the day doesn’t have to be complicated. Some cafés run specials, and it could be a good excuse to try an unfamiliar roast or pick up beans with a fair trade label, a certification designed to help growers earn a fairer price.
Of course, you could also just savour this morning’s cup a little longer than usual. Somewhere, a farmer grew it.
Sources: United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Daily Coffee News, Coffee Association of Canada
