Coffee

Global average water footprint: 130 litres for 1 cup of coffee.

About 18900 litres of water are needed to produce 1 kg of roasted coffee. For a standard cup of coffee (125 ml) we require 7 gram of roasted coffee, so that a cup of coffee costs 130 litres of water.

The global sum of international virtual water flows related to trade in coffee in the period 1996-2005 was 85 billion m3/yr, which was 3.7% of the total international virtual water flows related to trade in agricultural and industrial products in the world (Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2010, 2011).

The global water footprint of coffee production. Source: Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2010).

Publications

2011	Mekonnen, M.M. and Hoekstra, A.Y. (2011) The green, blue and grey water footprint of crops and derived crop products, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 15(5): 1577-1600.		Download 1.2 MB
2010	Mekonnen, M.M. and Hoekstra, A.Y. (2010) The green, blue and grey water footprint of crops and derived crop products, Value of Water Research Report Series No.47, UNESCO-IHE.	Main Report Volume 1	Download 1.2 MB
		Appendices Volume 2	Download 9.7 MB
2007	Chapagain, A.K., and Hoekstra, A.Y. (2007) The water footprint of coffee and tea consumption in the Netherlands, Ecological Economics, 64(1): 109-118.		Download 0.7 MB
2003	Chapagain, A.K. and Hoekstra, A.Y. (2003) The water needed to have the Dutch drink coffee, Value of Water Research Report Series No.14, UNESCO-IHE, Delft, the Netherlands.		Download 0.5 MB