Why Australians Order Iced Coffee in Winter

Walk into any café in the middle of July and you'll still see iced coffees going out the door. That's not a fluke, and it's not really about the weather anymore.

It stopped being a weather story

In May this year, every second coffee order across Australian cafes came over ice. Not in summer, in May. That's not a heatwave, that's a habit. Somewhere along the way iced coffee stopped being what you order on a hot day and started being what you order because it's what you actually like.

Cold is the default for under 35 coffee drinkers

For coffee drinkers under 35, cold has stopped being a variation on the menu and become the default format. That shift matters for how cafes build their offering, and it's exactly why iced drinks reward good coffee and punish bad coffee. There's no steam or milk texture to hide behind, whatever's in the cup is what you taste.

The cafes doing well with this customer aren't running a seasonal iced special, they're building cold first menus that hold up all year. It's part of why we built BOOM cold brew concentrate in the first place, so cafes and home drinkers have something ready to go the moment cold is what's ordered, not just in December.

If you want to put it to the test yourself, our salted caramel iced latte recipe is a good place to start, or you can shop BOOM cold brew concentrate directly.