Data report · Updated June 2026
The State of Specialty Coffee, 2026.
As of June 2026, the Remembrew directory tracks 3,134 specialty cafés and 1,391 roasters across 129 cities in 59 countries. It is hand-curated, lists no chains and no paid placements, and every location is verified against OpenStreetMap. Here is what the global third-wave scene looks like by the numbers.
The 15 densest specialty coffee cities
Ranked by the number of curated specialty cafés in each city. Tokyo leads with 51 cafés.
| # | City | Country | Cafés |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tokyo | Japan | 51 |
| 2 | London | United Kingdom | 50 |
| 3 | New York | United States | 50 |
| 4 | Berlin | Germany | 45 |
| 5 | Melbourne | Australia | 45 |
| 6 | San Francisco | United States | 42 |
| 7 | Sydney | Australia | 42 |
| 8 | Los Angeles | United States | 40 |
| 9 | Seoul | South Korea | 40 |
| 10 | Paris | France | 39 |
| 11 | Portland | United States | 38 |
| 12 | Taipei | Taiwan | 38 |
| 13 | Toronto | Canada | 38 |
| 14 | Chicago | United States | 36 |
| 15 | Amsterdam | Netherlands | 35 |
Where specialty coffee lives, by country
The 12 countries with the most curated specialty cafés in the directory.
Methodology
Every café in the Remembrew directory is added through web-grounded research and then verified against OpenStreetMap; any venue whose location cannot be confirmed is dropped rather than guessed. The directory carries no paid placements and removes permanently-closed venues. Counts on this page are computed directly from the live directory and were last refreshed in June 2026. Cite as: “Remembrew Specialty Coffee Directory, June 2026.”
Explore the underlying data: cities, roasters, coffee guides.
Common questions
- How many specialty coffee shops are there worldwide?
- No one tracks every café, but the Remembrew directory, a hand-curated index of specialty coffee, lists 3,134 cafés across 129 cities in 59 countries as of June 2026. It excludes chains and pay-to-list venues, so it skews toward independent, third-wave coffee.
- Which city has the most specialty cafés?
- In the Remembrew directory, Tokyo leads with 51 curated specialty cafés as of June 2026.
- What is specialty coffee?
- Specialty coffee is coffee scored 80+ points on the 100-point Specialty Coffee Association scale: traceable, high-quality beans, usually single-origin or carefully blended, roasted to highlight origin character rather than mask it. The directory tracks the cafés and roasters serving it.
- How is this data collected?
- Each café is added through web-grounded research and its location is verified against OpenStreetMap; venues that can't be verified are dropped rather than guessed. Remembrew lists no paid placements and removes permanently-closed venues. The dataset is refreshed continuously.
The weekly bean drop
One coffee we're into, one café worth a flight, one tip you can use Sunday morning.